


Never Hurt Nobody

by clutzycricket



Series: Innana's Hounds [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Road Trips, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:19:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Originally part of the Big Bang Black Out, rewritten!)</p><p>Partial AU. During Prisoner of Azkaban, two odd strikes of luck make Sirius Black's life a good deal more interesting, and possibly easier. The first is finding a wand. The second is trying to snoop on an annoying Muggle paranormal reporter who ended up assigned to cover a possible conspiracy- his escape. It turns out the reporter's a good deal sharper than she looks, and decides to tag along for the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Prime Minister was staring in horror. "Would you care to repeat that?"  
  
"Sirius Black— he escaped Azkaban, and while I'm sure it will turn out to be nothing, I'd like you to just use this prompt we've come up with…" The Other Minister said.  
  
"Just why would I do that?" he said indignantly. Cornelius Fudge, most would admit, tended to lack a certain sense of… diplomacy? Willingness to explain magical concepts in a way that didn't make the other person want to slap him? But no one would think he'd need to be good at explanations, mostly because he really didn't need it in day to day affairs in a normal term, and he was usually decent at explaining things from note cards for the odd speech over the Wireless.  
  
The Minister of Magic was starting to suspect this would be a far from normal term. He merely gave a long-suffering sigh of the sort his predecessor had been famous for and started giving a rambling explanation that made little sense to the man across the desk.  
  
"Do you have a trial transcript?" The Prime Minister finally asked, feeling a bit like he was missing something. Having the facts laid out in order might help. Or perhaps a dictionary of some sort. At least with some sort of records he could have a decent grasp on the situation.  
  
Fudge winced. "Well… there isn't one."  
  
"You don't record what was said in a trial? I'll take some newspaper clippings, though you and I both know how useful those can be," he said, trying for light heartedness. Fudge, the Prime Minister was beginning to suspect, was the wizarding equivalent of that man who you might occasionally see and chat with in classes, but would never trust with your notes, for fear they'd end up word for word in his essay.  
  
"I mean… it's not important," Fudge said impatiently, face growing red. "Just use this prompt. One of the wizards in the Muggle Liaison Office came up with it."  
  
The Prime Minister read it. And then read it again. "You're setting this up via the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries?"  
  
"Well, we don't want people to dig around, figure it might save the Obliviators some trouble. Don't worry, we can have a Muggleborn stationed at the tipline…" Fudge rambled.  
  
The Prime Minister thought about it. Fudge's hesitancy to explain anything about the lack of transcript pressed a mental button that spoke of things like scandal and press nightmare. He was reluctant to get involved. But God knows what Fudge or the apparent idiots he worked with would do if he refused. Might as well let them get what they had coming, and work at saving face if anything went awry. "Sure."

  
~

No one was entirely sure how the hell Dean Cooper had managed to get an office for a conspiracy magazine in Old City.

Well, three people knew- Dean, the ghost, and Jenna Andrews.

Dean, obviously, knew.

Jenna had heard it from the ghost, a motherly woman in a very eighties dress who was currently drifting over to the blonde woman’s corner office.

“Jenna, dear, our Dean is coming over,” the ghost said, a distant sort of disapproval in her voice. “He looks too pleased with himself.” The ghost, who said her name was Mary Ellen, didn’t really approve of Dean’s crazier ideas. Part of that, Jenna suspected, was the fact that ghosts tended to be rooted in the time they died. Things like the internet were vaguely off-putting to Mary Ellen, but at least they didn’t have any yellow fever victims like the pizza place a few blocks off.

Jenna looked at her desk for any stray post-its about story ideas Megan might have dropped off. She’d turned in her piece on the subway station- and her combat boots were never going to be the same, thank you metric fuck-ton of broken glass and other assorted goodies.

There was nothing, so Jenna was a bit nervous. Last time she hadn’t a hint what Dean had planned, he’d gotten her into the overnight at Fort Mifflin.

Being locked in a dark dungeon-like windowless room from a Revolutionary War fort was stretching even Jenna’s ability to roll with life. (It wasn’t, however, as bad as the Moundsville Incident, which had ended with Jenna nearly quitting.)

“Hello, JJ,” he said, which made her raise her eyebrows. “I have something you might find interesting.”

Dean was somewhere in his upper fifties. He was losing the fight against baldness and grey hairs both, with puffy bags under his eyes. Rumpled and perpetually in another world, he was too clever by half and prone to thinking of the company over the safety and sanity of his employees.

“Do I have enough coffee for this?” she asked.

"You know Lucille Harding?" he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Jenna winced. Lucille Harding was as batty as they came, and special ordered the paper edition of Reimer over to her Liverpool home since she moved there three years ago. And never failed to send letters for every issue with suggestions. "She finally came up with something that might be good." He handed her his tablet, open to a press release.

"Sirius Black? Never heard of… wait, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries?" Jenna looked over her screen at him. It wasn’t all that far, she could see the slightly dingy window above his thinning steel grey hair. "That's… special. What did he do, tip sheep?"  
  
"I wouldn't recommend it," Dean smirked. "Tried it when I was a kid. Animals are never as harmless as PETA would have you believe. Anyway, here's the thing — no one knows a thing about the man. It's like he's…"  
  
"A ghost. I get it. So what, you want me to make some phone calls?" She went to open her internet browser. "Research, get some opinions and quotes, the usual puff piece?"  
  
"Nope. I want you on scene," Dean said, a bit too cheerfully. He was plotting something, and using her own curiosity as a tool to get his way. Dean, newer employees thought, would have been happier at one of the big papers, running exposes. Older employees realized that having to answer to someone would have killed him by now. "Something seems wrong with this picture, and—"  
  
"Me?" Jenna squeaked. "But…" This was not her normal assignment. Really, this was more Isabel’s thing. If by some journalistic miracle she found something conspiracy-like, she wouldn’t be able to look her friend in the eye again.   
  
Dean waved his hand absently, nearly knocking over the small bookshelf. Jenna had claimed one of the corner desks by virtue of being the second hire, using the shelves for various reference books. It also allowed her to keep an eye on some of her more interesting coworkers. And interviewees, most of whom stupidly dismissed the not exactly statuesque blonde."You're one of our best reporters."  
  
"Best debunker you mean," Jenna pointed out. "I'm the theater and history majors, not the Poli Sci man. That's Richard. Or, you know, the former star investigative reporter. What’s her name, it starts with an I…"  
  
"Richard has all of the tact of a goose in mating season," Dean pointed out right back. "And before you say anything, Megan's already doing the Hillside assignment, you already pointed out Jules can't function as a one man team — " Jenna had not meant that, and what was she expected to take photos of, exactly? An idea was forming in her mind she dismissed as too crazy, even for Dean. "Isabel, as… brilliant as she is, has her daughter to worry about, and Kenny doesn’t work for us full time. Besides, who would turn down an interview with a sweet young thing like you?"  
  
Jenna sighed. Dean's inability to understand the finer points of dealing with people was one of her continual annoyances at this job. Jenna hated it, as a five-four blonde tended to get that sort of comment a lot... despite having won women’s boxing tournaments through college, not to mention the shooting scholarships.

Isabel would have been pissed, though. The woman had been on the fast track in investigative reporting, having co-authored a series of exposés on a sex trafficking ring.  About three years later, Isabel ended up pregnant from that same partner, who had promptly dumped her. His family had been horribly offended by Isabel, for being too clever, too blunt, and not up to their “standards”- read as being Hispanic. It had led to a nasty scandal, since said jackass partner was from Money and had a cruel streak. Dean had snapped her up before Daisy was born, and seven years later, Isabel led the more “serious” stories. (Jenna had somehow become godmother. She wasn’t entirely sure on the particulars, having been on some rather lovely painkillers at the time from a bit of urban exploring.)   
  
"I did want to do the Hillside assignment," she pointed out. "Megan's a bit too easily spooked to dump in a cemetery." The girl didn’t have blood, as far as Jenna could tell. She was just a caffeine vampire, constantly jumping about and racing through her words. Possibly due to being a washed-out medical student with a flair for creepy story-telling.  
  
Dean sighed. "She's from that area, and after the incident at Eastern State Penitentiary…" Jenna blushed at that. She tended to get more… interesting haunting reactions, for reasons that were subject to bets at the office and only Dean and Isobel knew for certain. It had been a bit worrying, this so-called psychic thing, but it got good stories. Even if she had strictly forbidden anyone from actually talking about it.  As such, it had possibly been her fault she'd been thrown down a set of rickety stairs by what she had been damn sure were hands. Even if all that the camera had shown was a smear not worth printing.

“It’s prohibitively expensive to cross the Atlantic for one article,” she pointed out, hoping against hope that financial responsibility would get through to him.

“I was thinking you could stay for a week or so,” he shrugged. “I’ll provide you an expense account, and we could make the professional pieces a bit more international. Maybe I can use it to start accepting some freelance articles, but people, for some reason, seem to like you, and what you do.”  
  
"Fine, I'll go," she said patiently, waiting for the real trap to be laid. "For a week, and I am not hopping across Europe. When?"

  
"Two days?" he asked hopefully. “I can get you a really good deal, and I knew you had a passport already. And the paperwork is already filled out.”  
  
She sighed, wondering how long Dean had been preparing this. He was a manipulative bastard. And, once again, she wondered if a new job would really be that boring.

  
Then she remembered that this was the best place for her — both in terms of hiding in plain sight, and as a chance to study the limits and tricks of her talent. Plus, Dean’s approach to work schedules let her occasionally help out at the drama club of a high school near her apartment, which was as close as she could logically get to her high school dreams of stage managing professionally. Odd dream, she knew, but it was a fun one. She was good at being productively bossy.  
  
Besides, it wasn't all bad. She liked the people. She liked (well, usually) living in the city, seeing Alexa and her other friends. She just didn't like the bruises she couldn't explain. Hell, if she wasn't very obviously single she'd probably have a domestic abuse intervention. Actually, she admitted, the fact that she only was a casual dater probably had more to do with the “beat up by ghosts” thing than she cared to admit.

She sighed and pushed off the beginnings of an introspection session, and prepared to throw together everything she would need to do to before tomorrow.

And maybe get some sleep. Living above a college bar sucked sometimes, even if the landlord was a friend.  
  


~

Jenna had decided, after settling in her ridiculously tiny hotel room, to see if she could get a better news clipping. Surely there should be more sensational information about a homicidal maniac than what seemed to be a standard brief used to fill out a newspaper column? Come on, that sort of thing only happened in conspiracy theories. Where was the melodramatic bullshit that usually came into situations like this? Where were the scandalized bits from the Daily Mail, which she was told was a scandal-mongering machine? Hell, none of them even mentioned what had happened. Only that Black was dangerous. And armed.

So, with some help and an agonized Skype call to Isabelle, she’d set out feelers. She’d contacted a few of her more together conspiracy buffs, and was praying with all the devotion of a   
  
After three hours in the first branch of a library she could find, her notebook was still embarrassingly empty, and she still couldn't figure out what this Black had supposedly done. Or where he was from. She looked at the photo, worrying at her lip. He seemed awfully…hell, she'd half expect him to be an escapee from some concentration camp or torturer’s dungeon, not a prison. Way too thin and pale, and if he had gotten a haircut in at least five years, she'd eat her collection of novelty pens.   
  
She jotted that down. Nothing substantial but maybe that treatment, which certainly didn't indicate humanitarian standards, could be a lead. Or some type of religious cult, perhaps. Had there been a Manson family, or a Jonestown, in England… five to fifteen years before? Something that no one really wanted to bring up? She could always go down to the local bar and ask, she supposed. People liked to impress pretty girls, especially wide-eyed girls from the mountain backcountry.

Even if that backcountry was across an ocean, and the girl in question had lived in a city for over a decade. (Megan, in a rare flash of personality, had suggested that in the movie of her life, Silence of the Lambs-era Jodie Foster would be a good pick. Richard had run with the jokes for months.)  
  
It was times like these she wished she'd gotten the intuition part of the paranormal shtick, rather than stirring up ghosts. That would be a great deal more useful, as she was no Sherlock Holmes. Or even Nancy Drew. Historical tomes written in tiny, decorative handwriting? No problem. Keeping a straight face when confronted by horrible events. Or just ones that bordered on ridiculous- that she could cope with. Dealing with the living? Occasionally frustrating.   
  
To distract herself from her growing annoyance, she thought about the evidence. If she didn't think it so outlandish, she'd suggest something about espionage. "It's all very James Bond," she whispered to herself jokingly, in her best Connery impersonation. Which sucked, but she was easily amused.  
  
"Miss Andrews, is it?" asked a man from behind her. She jumped, and then stared accusingly at the obviously crazy man who had startled her like that. He was definitely stare-worthy, and not in a good way.  
  
"Yes?" she said, eyes narrowed. He was dressed in something Jenna highly doubted was standard business anywhere. This may not be Georgia-weather, but even so... heavyweight wool? The purple paisley didn’t help, either. He looked like he’d stolen his wardrobe from the Joker in January.  
  
The platforms made her lips twitch a bit, though. She wondered if he was a Queen fan, or… oh, god, could he be a ghost? A disco-obsessed man who died among the stacks and noticed something that set her apart?  
  
"I'm afraid you have to leave," he said, looking not at all apologetic. She turned up the glare a bit — she always could send the rookies away twitching if she worked at it. He didn’t seem very affected.   
  
"May I know why?" she asked, not shouting, but speaking just loudly enough for the extremely helpful librarian (who'd allowed her to see the microfiche archives of the newspapers) to hear her. Unfortunately, the librarian was busy dealing with a young woman with lime green hair who had managed to fall down the wide, shallow stairs.  
  
"I'm afraid there was a problem with your credentials," he said, with that smug tone of voice that always made her want to hit something. "May I see your notes?"  
  
"May I see your credentials?" she asked, not giving an inch. He scowled. "Ah," she said sweetly. "You don't have any?" He was still looming, and showed no signs of leaving. But if she was judging that twitch right, she had hit the mark dead-on. Fed up and well aware that picking fights would just get her kicked out, she swept up her notes into her bag and then walked off before he could “confiscate” those, a bit creeped out. Easier to walk away now and not test anyone’s patience. She checked the balance of her swingy bag, weighed down with a hardback and a Maglite. Just in case, she’d stick to major roads and avoid the Underground, which seemed very useful for pickpockets. ‘Better to be paranoid than found dead at the side of the road with her skirt covering her tits,’ her Grams had always said.  (Grams had been the wife of the county medical examiner, and greatly enjoyed telling those types of stories.)

And maybe she was remembering Isabel’s stories, and the story she had heard from a drunken English professor, about a cursed library and the things that guarded it. Even if that was almost certainly a bit of fiction.

She was so busy wondering what that was all about, that she didn't notice the big black dog huddling in an alley, perking up as her furious muttering grew louder.  
  
"Who the hell is this Sirius Black, and why do I feel like I'm in the beginning of some conspiracy novel?" She snorted. "Stupid question, Andrews."  
  
The dog seemed to think this involved some investigation himself, and followed along at a distance.  
  
~~*~~  
  
Jenna frowned at her notes. "Okay… I take back that James Bond joke." She frowned. "All I have is his age, a very vague, rather worrying set of news articles, and the fact that he's been in prison for twelve years." She frowned. "And nothing is to be found on why. Or where he was held." Which was so far past weird that she could hear Rod Sterling narrating. No gory details, not even much in the way of speculation. Possibly some sort of secrecy thing? Why not run a disclaimer?  
  


Jesus, even her pet conspiracy nuts couldn’t turn up anything. Not that they hadn’t tried- and the whispers were getting louder. Even the usual cooler heads and devil’s advocates were starting to wonder about it. Splashing him on the news, with no further details? Why wasn’t there a group of talking heads on this? What the fuck had he been arrested for?

  
A sputtering noise from the vent made her groan. "Sweet Jesus," she muttered. "This is a really low-budget place." She frowned, considering the virtues of leaving her second story (or first-story, as the hotel staff called it) window open.  
  
Realizing that as it was a pretty balmy night out, and the room was a bit too cozy, she sighed and opened the window.  
  
~~*~~  
  
It was four AM. The dog scowled as well as it could up at the windows. Dammit. He knew enough of Ministry procedure to figure out how they would work, and had figured out a useful source of information and possible supplies, and then his plan was about to be foiled by a bloody room assignment.  
  
And it was a decent plan, too. He knew he was hampered by the limitations of dog form, and, even if he didn't want to admit it, his own health. It was hard for a large, undernourished black dog to avoid detection when nicking food. That meant meals were infrequent, which made him even more undernourished, and that made a vicious cycle that he refused to admit would keep him from getting up to Hogwarts.  
  
Well, at least he'd checked on Harry, who seemed to be safe enough for now, heading for Diagon Alley. But who knew what would happen when September 1st rolled around and it was school time?  
  
In any case, the woman seemed to be a Muggle journalist who wrote for what seemed to be some sort of tabloid, from the rather angry discussion the Aurors had been having (in a far too public place), and definitely skeptical of what was going on. At the very least, he could get a better idea of what the Ministry was saying about him. Hunting down different papers right now was a pain. Trying to read with paws was an even bigger pain. Money would also be a good thing. Maybe some writing equipment, so he could… what? Beg Remus to believe him. Yes, and pigs could fly without Levicorpus.  
  
Maybe lure Peter out? Nah, that would be impossible. Wormtail had fled once already, if he put too much pressure on him, he would probably flee the country.  
  
Plus, anyone who seemed to annoy Dawlish the way she seemed to have couldn't be that bad. The man had been shouting at some poor apprentice who couldn't be Little Dora, but metamorphagi were rare, and Andromeda had married a Tonks, hadn't she?  
  
Sirius frowned and then, with a groan, noticed the hotel's architecture.  
  
The hotel was an old building that had the occasional raised brick on the alleyway side the woman was on, and very deep windowsills. A quick pop back into human form, a little light magic (he was grateful to the drunk wizard who "lost" his wand in Scarborough, when he'd gotten turned around — that had certainly come in handy), and he'd be fine.  
  
In fact, he wasn't fine. It was actually a bit harder than it looked and he was nursing a very scraped up hand by the time he managed to get in the room, where he saw the notes laid out on the side table. He very nearly grinned a little at some of her more outlandish theories. ("Dammit, he's a failed experiment for a British Weapon X.", whatever that was, reeked of desperation.)  
  
He frowned a bit at the rather obvious story she was already beginning to piece together. Why had Fudge alerted the Muggles? It was the flimsiest cover story he'd heard, too. The world had gone downhill after he'd… he shook his head. Focus. Some food would be nice. Or a drink… she probably wouldn’t notice if he drank some of the apple juice next to the notebook.  
  
He looked warily at the woman sleeping on the bed, but she showed no signs of stirring, dark blonde hair tangled and sticking out of the blanket. 

Right. He grabbed the juice bottle, sipping a little as he read her notes and trying to figure out how it affected his plans. Since the Ministry had only seen fit to send the most recent annual photo (why they took them he never knew, probably so those with the cash could snigger over the prisoners' gradual decay) he would be able to deflect a good amount of suspicion with a pair of scissors. Maybe gardening shears, he admitted ruefully.   
  
He continued drinking the juice as he kept reading, and trying to decide whether he should leave soon. He was exhausted, no doubt since the only spell he'd done in twelve years had been his animagus transformation. He nearly choked when he read that she was actually going to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries tomorrow. Was she mad?  
  
Well, she was a Muggle. She didn't know about wizards. She probably thought she'd just be reiterating something the Times or whatever would scoop her on. The Ministry could probably handle domestic papers, but some American in an independent source that — if the copy on her desk was her work — specialized in Muggles noticing things they shouldn't, well… That would be a clusterfuck. Or, more likely, it was the Ministry’s low-key and unspoken grudge against observant Muggles who actually spoke about “unexplainable” things.

And Americans. The Ministry still had issues with the independence of various parts of the former empire. Not helped by some death eaters cursing a group of American Aurors in Boston near the end of the war, coming back to England, and getting promptly pardoned. (Especially since the one survivor was the eldest kid of of Montglane, and all the diplomatic shit Sirius knew had to be going on still.)  
  
He yawned, then realized he was too wobbly to stand. He looked around, then frowned at the little orange bottle he hadn't noticed before, because it seemed important now. There were little candy-things… ah, hell, muggles used pills, not potions. He’d thought it was a brilliant idea when he’d heard of it, but if it was in the drink…  
  
He was barely awake enough to change into dog form before he hit the floor.  
  
~~*~~  
  
Jenna got up, hating the groggy feeling she got from her medicine. Or maybe it was just her caffeine addiction. Talking to her doc about it seemed a good idea. She had been a bit nervous about taking the sleep medication given her scare earlier, but after berating herself for being a paranoid nut, she'd mixed the sprinkles version with her juice, and drank a third of the little bottle. Not a full dose, but enough to take the edge off her insomnia.  
  
She looked around, and blinked in sleepy shock at the dog on the floor, snoring. Then she sighed and got out the 'Do Not Disturb' sign to hang on her door before the maid kicked up a fuss. The poor thing had probably snuck inside while someone wasn't looking, or something... Maybe through an open door, or some failed lock. After all, it was a cheap motel. It probably hadn't been hard for the dog to slip in.  
  
She took a careful look at her mostly empty bottle of juice, which she hadn't closed the night before. Her parents were always on at her about her bad habit of always forgetting to replace the lids on her drinks, but she'd never quite managed to kick it. The dog must have knocked it over and lapped it up. Even considering its size, it looked worryingly underfed. It wouldn't have taken that much juice to knock him out.  
  
She sighed, looking at it. Really, she had a fairly good story already. She could take a morning off to deal with the dog, vaguely recalling that the motel — cheap — did not have a 'no pets allowed' rule. A comb and some scissors…  
  
She shook her head. What was she doing? It might be rabid… and was now waking up. Oh, God. This was not good. It came up to her elbows. She looked around for something to defend herself with, wishing that for once she could think things through. Not listening to her mother's dream of her becoming Dr. Jenna Andrews was probably a bad idea. Listening to Dr. Foster and interviewing for the Susanna Reimer,... that was another bad idea. Letting Dean talk her into this trip hopefully wouldn't be her last.  
  
The dog looked groggily at the panicking woman, and then widened its eyes and made a whining noise.  
  
"Nice doggy," Jenna said slowly. "Good doggy. Good, nice, not-mauling doggy."  
  
The dog let out a slow woof, and seemed to study her for a moment, before making a groaning noise. Jenna, still on the edges of Pan's Realm, grabbed a wire coat hanger, brandishing it like a sword.  
  
The dog whimpered, lowering its head, and Jenna lowered the coat hanger experimentally. It stayed in a nonthreatening position. "This is a very strange morning."  
  
The dog seemed to give her a look. She carefully moved a hand towards the dog, which let her pat its head carefully. "Hmm. Do I give you to a shelter?"  
  
The dog whimpered again, looking at her hopefully. Jenna had to agree. No one would adopt what looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles. Except, she realized with a sinking feeling, one Jenna Andrews, softie extraordinaire. She gave it a cursory examination, noticing a few little things, much to the dog's dismay.  
  
"Okay, Mister. First things first — a vet. And then dog food." The dog looked up at her balefully, clearly feeling that this was not necessary. She merely ignored it. "Then I have to look up importation and licensing laws."  
  
~~*~~  
  
Sirius had a feeling this wouldn't be easy. Plans, plans. Stunning her and running off? Sneaking off on the way? Hell, maybe just transforming and explaining? He snorted. Yeah, that would work. He’d been planning on sneaking information, not actually assuming he could go to her for help. He frowned. Well, she seemed pretty open minded, and going to the vet didn't seem like a viable plan, either. And he doubted she'd tell anyone that bit. Or that she'd be believed. And vets were not good. They'd probably notice something off, and that would be worse.  
  
He gulped. This better pay off. He was not going back to Azkaban because some stupid Muggle drugged her own juice. Even if he broke into her room.  
  
And then there was a knock at the door. The Muggle woman looked through the peephole and then stiffened. Sirius growled when he recognized Dawlish's voice. "Miss Andrews, we need to speak with you."  
  
Andrews, to her credit, didn't open it all the way, leaving the chain firmly on. (Sirius winced as she gave it a puzzled frown.) "Again, ID?" A slim leather wallet was passed through the cracks, picked up in a swathe of fabric. "Nice try, but I called the archive office and local PD last night. Never heard of you." She placed the wallet on the bed. “I’ll be giving that to the authorities, thanks. Now scram.”   
  
So maybe she was a little clever. Or just paranoid. From what he remembered, Dawlish was not at all sympathetic to the Death Eaters or their ideals, but he was a proud man and he'd want to settle the score with her, and perhaps modify her memory so that she didn't remember him. Actually, just doing the charm himself — and the chance to… mend the gaps that would be caused in her memory — would be enough for him. Hopefully he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.  
  
And there was a pesky pang of his faded conscience. Andrews seemed an alright sort, letting Dawlish humiliate her (and he would) seemed cruel. He looked at the woman, who suddenly seemed a lot smaller and a lot more delicate looking. Plus, if Dawlish found him…  
  
Muttering evil things about juice and vets in his head, he crept around and braced himself against the door to hold it closed in case they tried to force it open. Andrews looked at him in surprise, then at the chain again. Ack. This was… this wasn't good.  
  
Dawlish seemed to be content to stick to shouting.  
  
Andrews sighed and went to the tan device on the table… was it a telephone? Merlin, it had been ages since he’d been out in the world. "Hello, I'm at Room 221 at the…" she began, and Sirius resumed his guard dog stance against the door.  
  
"Really?" she said, cheerfully surprised. "Well, that is a bit quick. Oh, he's been hassling other people, too? Gotcha."  
  
Dawlish was still pounding against the door as Andrews made another phone call. "Hello, Front Desk? I'm really sorry about the disturbance, but I did call the police, and they said he had been doing this quite a bit."  
  
Surprisingly quickly. the Muggle police came for Dawlish, who was at least smart enough to go quietly. He wondered if the Ministry would let him sit there a few days to cool his heels. Probably. Bones was in charge, if he remembered correctly, and she never did like vendettas overtaking professionalism, especially petty ones.  
  
Andrews looked at him, before sighing and collapsing on the bed. "Well, I think I just cleared my schedule for the day. Let's just… I'll get a brush and a comb, maybe scissors, and… just sandwiches for now."  
  
So maybe he'd just sneak away tonight. Sandwiches were good.  
  
~~*~~  
  
Jenna studied the dog more carefully as she tried to get the worst of the tangles out. He looked like he'd been well taken care of, once, so he was probably just due for a bath. The eyes were a bit disconcerting, a sharp grey she didn't think would be normal. Of course, look at Huskys.  
  
"Sheesh, was your mother the Hound of the Baskervilles?" she muttered. She'd be willing to gamble his ancestors had had more than a passing acquaintance with a Newfoundland and an Alaskan malamute, too. All joking aside, though, he was really a bit too clever, and she was reminded of the stories of Black Dogs she'd done a piece on a year ago. "Well," she reflected, "I could always call you Baskerville…" What was that other name of Black Dogs again? It had a decent ring to it… Not Skriker, or Churchyard Beast. She'd expect him to snap if she called him Hateful Thing. Maybe Black Shuck, if she remembered right — at least that one was benign.  
  
The dog made a woofing noise, derailing her train of thought. Right. Get him respectable looking first, then worry about a name. She sighed and wished she'd just shelled out for the grooming parlor. She was almost done, she thought. He'd been a bit tricky, but hadn't actually behaved in a way that made her want to call Animal Control. He didn’t seem to have the normal reaction of dogs and water, even if she was using the drug store shampoo she’d picked up at Heathrow.  
  
As she was finishing up, the phone rang. She answered it, feeling a bit odd.  
  
"Hey, Jenna?" Dean said, sounding eager and a bit out-there. Oh, great, what complication came up now?  
  
"Yes?" she said slowly. She remembered the feeling that Dean was up to something when he broached this assignment. “I’m pissed off at you right now. Some spook is hassling me.”

“Really?” Dean sounded weirdly excited, and Jenna sighed. “Spook-spook, or spy-spook? I told you this might be something…”

“Living, probably not government, given the wardrobe,” she looked at the wallet. “And had a fake ID, not that that means much.”  
  
"Fake IDs are probably just as easy to get on the other side of the Pond,” he agreed. “Would you mind staying there a few months? Not 'til Christmas, or anything, but just two, two and a half months?" he continued. "We can probably get a whole series of articles out."  
  
Jenna blinked, gaping at the phone. "Can… visas and stuff… stalker?" Coherency at this point conceded to a wave of “what the fuck” and its ally “oh, god, I was right, why did I have to be right”.  
  
"I got you a six month visa. Just send me an article a week?" he kept going. “I know a guy who smoothed it over. I did him some major favors before, and it would be a really good hook.”  
  
"We only print once a month," Jenna pointed out. "What kind of favor? Did you hide a body?" Mentally , she calculated  the usual commission for an article, added the base salary, and winced. There was a reason she did freelance pieces on the side, in addition to occasional bartending at Dylan’s bar under her apartment. Maybe sell photographs? She wasn’t Megan or Jules, but she could do well enough, and could do photo-cleaning work on laptop. Her rent was clear- Nicolette was in the city, and had a steady enough job to cover the rent on Jenna’s apartment, so she agreed to stay there and apartment hunt. Hell, maybe the novel Jenna was putting on Amazon would take off.

If wishes were horses...  
  
"Nothing they could prosecute, but the magnitude was there. Anyway, I'll print one a month. We can have a series or something. How's the Black article going?" Dean asked.

"Weird. Don't think I'll get to the bottom of it, but something seems creepy about this," she bit her lip.   
  
"Huh. Well, don't keep pressing, just talk to the cops about it and send me the article," her boss said. “If you travel a little, maybe your stalker will get bored.”  
  
"Got it," Jenna said, really wishing Richard had been the one to do this. She looked at the dog after she hung up. "Well, it looks like we're going on a road trip."  
  
The dog woofed happily, only to be met with a cross glare.  
  
"I still have to figure out where to go," Jenna muttered. "Ah, well. I'll figure it out tomorrow. Today, shopping."  
  
  


 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Chapter Two

Jenna managed to keep up a pleasant face while shopping, picking up a second weekender bag and chatting with the owner of a bodega who was thrilled she understood Hungarian. (She’d seen the flag, Grandad taught her when she was a kid.) She’d hit the second hand shops in smaller towns when she got going, and an email to Godmother would mean that she would be able to afford an RV that would keep her from paying for hotels.

She had some plain boiled chicken and rice for Baskerville, and a packaged sandwich and a Coke for herself.

However, when she opened her hotel room, wishing for the mostly-legal handgun in her apartment back home, she was freaking out when she saw a man in the room.

“Jenna,” he said, blinking. “Ah. Shit.”

She looked at him. “What is going on? Who are you?” He didn’t look capable of wrestling a junkie, so she closed the door, that odd little instinct linked to her ghosts telling her it was fine.

“Sirius Black,” he said, a rueful, mischievous smile on his face. “I think you wanted to speak with me? Though not if you hit me with that coat hanger. Very frightening, that.” He was wincing at the hoarseness of his voice. She blinked, reaching for something in her purse and scowling when she could not find it.  
  
"I've gone crazy," she said slowly, adjusting her hold in her bag. "Because I know I threatened a dog with the coat hanger. You could not see that. You are not a dog."  
  
"No," he said, figuring he might as well just deal. If he could talk his way out of this… maybe this way he'd have an easier form of transport than his own four feet. And he could get to the rat faster. "I'm… this is a long story."  
  
"I'm good at long stories," Andrews said brightly, eyes losing sleep-bleariness. "One could say that my life is all about long stories."  
  
He sighed. "Do you believe in magic?" Might as well be hung for a whole dragon…  
  
"You know… I've been wondering, a bit." The sarcasm could be cut with a knife. She was definitely awake. He does look like a version of the photos filled with less murderous rage, she mused, trying to flip through her options. “How did you get in?” He had powers, which made more sense then it didn’t. She knew there were others like her- her godmother, the professor who hooked her up with the Riemer, probably someone involved in the favor Dean had called in. Black had powers, and that was why this whole mess was happening. Dean suspected it, and wasn’t going to press because he knew Jenna would only do it if she wanted to. “Because I threatened a dog, and you are not a dog. A very large dog who I do not see and **_what did you do to my dog_**!”

Sirius turned into Baskerville, and she shrieked.

“I gave you a bath!” she hissed.

“Thank you for that,” he said, looking as if she was his personal saint. “Much better than the Azkaban version where they chuck water over your head and pray you get pneumonia.”

“I suspect,” Jenna said, “that this is a very, very long story. One you are going to tell me as I examine your hand.”

Sirius instinctively hid his hand, which was looking very red and angry around the edges, and possibly risking infection.

“Sit,” Jenna said, firmly and with no intention of being disobeyed. “And I will clean and bandage your hand, and you will tell me more about magic.” She decided he looked shitty enough she could go and fetch her first aid kit from the bathroom. “Because, upon consideration, magic could be a thing.”

"Like wizards?" he said, almost amused. Sharp little thing. Might as well be hung for a whole dragon…  
  
She tilted her head. "It would make a sort of sense. Some of the things I've seen, and the changes in stories all of a sudden... being given explanations that don't make sense…" She grinned wickedly. "Unless you're a dangerous, sheep-screwing madman."  
  
He let out a bark of surprised laughter. "Good point. I don't know what the Ministry was thinking, using that as a cover story."  
  
"Ministry? For wizards? Is it actually working under the auspices of Agriculture and Fisheries? And you should so be grateful that I did my homework on this, otherwise the dog collar jokes would never end." she asked, eyes wide. He was fairly sure she was mocking him. Good, that meant he didn’t scare her. Considering the amount he’d seen her carry with ease, he was willing to bet that it might be because she could hand him his head without breaking a sweat right now.  
  
"Nah. It's just something they probably thought of in the moment," he theorized. “They don’t usually have much contact with the outside world.” Hopefully. Actually, the “armed and dangerous” story had been used before, when Fenrir Greyback had first allied himself with Voldemort.  
  
…Well, shit. That was not good.  
  
"Okay, then. Well, why did you come here?" she asked. "Don't you have anyone else to…" His face must have given away that he didn't want to talk about it. "Right. But why me?"  
  
"Sounded like you'd believe me," he hazarded. Theft wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to admit to. "Besides, I was curious what was being said about me."  
  
She looked at him peculiarly, then shook her head. "You aren't right in the head. What happened twelve years ago? The conspiracy sites are howling. It’s starting to go international, and you would be amazed at how hard that can be." She pinched her nose. “Well. Lightning can strike, but without the right sort of coverage…”  
  
He blinked. "That was direct. Well…" Haltingly, he explained what had happened. Afterwards, Jenna blinked, got up and went over to the rest room, and came out with two small paper cups of water.  
  
"It's not the drink I really want right now…" she said quietly, "but it's what we have. Plus, booze would probably knock you out."  
  
He took it and gulped it quickly. "My turn. What are you doing in England, anyway?"  
  
"Assignment. One of our regulars sent us the story, and my editor thought it was strange enough to warrant a good look. And he wanted me here before breaking the idea of a series on the ghosts of Great Britain, but he didn’t tell me until today… or is it yesterday?" Andrews was still looking at him. "You need a doctor."  
  
"No I don't," he said stubbornly.  
  
"You have cuts and bruises all over, and I probably outweigh you a good thirty pounds, while not even coming up to your collarbone," Jenna pointed out. He gave her a skeptical look, as she couldn't be more than a hundred and change. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?"  
  
"Hard to do when you're on the run as a dog," he pointed out wearily. “The fur makes it hard to tell when you need to shave, I’m afraid.”  
  
"I'll see if I can pick you up some soup and crackers tomorrow, you really can make yourself sick if you don't give yourself time to get adjusted to good food," she said firmly. “I am not cleaning up vomit.”  
  
"I don't have time," he hissed. "I have to find that rat Pettigrew."  
  
Jenna cocked her head, managing to look down on him despite the fact that he had more than half a foot on her. "I get that. We're going to do that. But you have every cop on this island looking for you. We'll go slow and carefully, because they'll think you're wherever Harry Potter is. If we wait, they won’t be expecting us."  
  
"Northern Scotland," he said. "That's where I need to go."  
  
"Lay low and build your strength," Jenna looked at him steadily, green eyes- a few shades lighter than Lily’s, he reckoned, though the memories had Azkaban cobwebs on them- sharp and without a trace of fear.

Slightly off in color, exactly right in ‘done with you’. "You won't be able to hit the border of London right now. Hell, I’m amazed you made it this far."  
  
He glared at the very frustrating woman. "I have to…"  
  
"You wait, Black, and they'll lower the guard. You won't be tossed about by breezes," she was scowling. "You can barely handle that stick, and what the hell happened to your hand? It'll get infected before you hit the city limits!"  
  
He glared. "The bricks outside are very slippery. And it's a wand. It helps me do wizardly things like turn annoying women into frogs."  
  
"Right," she said, clearly disbelieving him. "You can't raise it fast enough before I tackle you and probably bruise a few of your ribs. Which I could probably count under that dress of yours."  
  
He groaned, conceding the point. "Fine. But no doctors. I don't want to get caught."  
  
Jenna nodded. "So antiseptics and bandages, camping supplies… Thank God Dean gave me an expense account. I can probably find some decent instructions on handling malnutrition- God bless forums, I guess."  
  
"How are you going to explain this stuff?" he asked. She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I'm going to Somerset first. Two days. Then Oxford. Work my way north," she said. "I still have a job to do. I'll just sneak you along. Anything else? My expense account is mostly dedicated to patching myself up. The world is a very strange place, and I have a knack for wandering into it."

He tilted his head. “Besides wizards?” He knew about some things, of course, and some rumors, but he’d never gotten straight answers.

Twelve years in Azkaban had frustrated his plans a bit.

“Wizards are a new thing for me,” she said, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. “I had a wacky, wacky incident with a vampire, though,” she added, pure mischief in her tone. “I think Dean just wants to see what hijinx I can get into out of my comfort zone.”  
  
He scoffed. "And what do I do?"  
  
"Tell stories I won't publish, get well, help in case anything goes too wrong," Jenna answered absently. He wondered if her sentences got shorter as she got more into something.   
  
"Ah. So, itinerary?" he asked hopefully. “And I’ll pay you back for this afterwards,” he added, wondering if his accounts had been properly seized or just frozen. Since he’d never actually been convicted… hmm, had he ever been disinherited?  
  
"Well, it's August 24th," she mused. "By the 26th, I want to be on my way to Somerset. Stay there a few days… two days might be a bit short. Maybe four?"  
  
"I want to be at Hogwarts by Halloween?" he asked, having a feeling that this tiny, human Bludger would track him down herself if he tried leaving early. She looked determined, and he hadn’t missed her ducking his question about explanations. Plus, she might have a point about the guards. And, even if he didn't like admitting it, his health. He was not going to admit that having someone worried for him was nice. At all. She was far too bossy.  
  
Plus, there was some sort of irony in catching the rat on Halloween.  
  
She blinked. "Ah… that's a good plan. Was I too much? Sorry, I spent most of late high school and college bossing around actors, I slip into it sometime. Not that I dislike actors, most of them are really nice, but then I still had to deal with those who think they're God's gift to the stage when it's more a tipsy angel who tripped rather than fell. Leaves a picture. Plus, you'd be amazed how much can get done with that sort of attitude. "  
  
He blinked."What?" That made no sense to him.   
  
"I did theater work, as a stage manager. Some of the stories I can tell you…" she looked up theatrically. "But I'm good at pulling off a steamroller impression. It helps certain parts of the job, but in personal things…" She shrugged.  
  
He nodded at that.  
  
"I was a bit enthusiastic at school, and it does help get things done." he shook his head. "M'friend Remus was usually dragged along. Wonder why he never really complained…" He fought back a yawn and asked the question that had been bugging him. "Why are you helping me?"  
  
"Because you're doomed to failure if I don't," she drawled. "Plus, I like exciting adventures. I'm an impulsive adrenalin junkie and all that."  
  
"Right," Sirius said slowly to the woman who had been making the plans. She was pulling out her laptop, undoubtedly to make more plans.  
  
"Oh, I'm just an organized impulsive adrenalin junkie," Jenna said wryly. "Someone has to be. Mind sleeping as a dog again? It'll be easier on the maids." Especially considering the fact that he was in what looked like Ye Olde Prison Garb and his hair had not been affected by the Doggy Grooming Parlour. That would need to be fixed.  
  
He looked at her. "Mind turning around?"  
  
Jenna sighed and merely pulled her blanket over her head. He curled up on the floor, wondering what exactly was going on.  
  
~~*~~  
  
It had taken Jenna three days to find a damn van. It was probably twenty years old, and she'd ended up buying it in cash in a manner she suspected might not be entirely legal. But it had been cheap.

It was also a red that faded to pink in some spots, and what looked distressingly like rust in others. But the engine worked fine (thank you, summers working at the local garage), and it was structurally sound.  
  
"Anyway you can sweep through it for drugs?" Jenna asked Sirius hopefully. The interior was a bit cramped, but Sirius could sleep while she drove. And maybe, once he looked a lot less like those photographs and she found out if he could, she might let him drive. Lonely country roads. At night.  
  
Okay, paranoia was not her friend all the time. But getting caught would not be fun. Who knew what would happen to a necromancer in a magical version of Arkham? Hopefully, she was right in thinking wizards really were as out of touch as they seemed to be, and no one would follow what she did online with her in-person “pissing off the wizarding government”.  
  
He gave her a slight grin and got to work. The general grime had vanished by the time Jenna had finished loading everything, and no traces of drugs could be found.  
  
"Probably didn't want to lose profits," Sirius offered. Jenna, once she stopped gaping, gave him an impulsive hug, trying to ignore his flinch. She figured he was touch starved, and she was clever enough to guess that he had been abused somehow while in Azkaban. She’d printed out a copy of the relevant sections of various human rights laws, gathered a few more from friends, and tentatively started highlighting them in various colors based on his comments. She really wanted to take up drinking at the amount of pink highlights.  
  
"Thank you!" she said happily. "I was so desperate I had to ignore the fact that it looked a bit like it had been used by a frat house." And smelled like one, but he probably knew that better than her.  
  
Sirius, after freezing at the unexpected contact, shook his head. "Trust me, smelling it was worse." Jenna pulled a face.  
  
"Right. Well, Taunton Castle, then the inevitable Glastonbury… Er, are there a lot of wizards in Glastonbury?" she asked, angling her way into the driver's seat.  
  
"No," he said slowly. "As far as I know. Most wizards tend to stay well away from Somerset and Cornwall. There's tales of strange creatures…"  
  
"Of the Na Daoine Maithe? In Arthurian legend?" she asked, half-curious, half-nervous. She'd loved the legends as a teen. It took him a minute to figure out what she meant, though. “My Gran on dad’s side always told me about them. Creeped me the fuck out.”  
  
"You mean the Underhill Folk?" he clarified. She nodded. "Yeah, supposedly Nimue was a vampire-fey. And the Princess of Ys, of course."  
  
"I heard a version of it," she angled. He took the bait.  
  
"It's a spooky story, supposedly to keep Purebloods from marrying those unworthy." He shrugged. "I don't know. Supposedly the Wizard-King of Ys ruled a city risen from the sea. But his wife couldn't have a kid, see? So he summoned the Lady of the Seas, and she gave him a daughter. On her sixteenth birthday, the daughter gave her mother the sea the keys to the ivory gates of Ys, and she crept in, with only the Wizard-King escaping on a thestral." He frowned. "If her parents were anything like some of the purebloods I know, I don't blame the girl a bit."  
  
Jenna, busy trying to remember what side of the street to stay on, made a 'go on' noise. She had avoided the tape player to avoid the inevitable music fight, but this was more interesting anyway.  
  
"Most purebloods — hell, most wizards, come to think of it — think that magic makes you above Muggles in every way," he offered. "Actually, avoiding Warminster, Cortley, and the area in Wiltshire is a good idea. The Malfoy Mansion is in the countryside around there."  
  
"Well, there goes Longleat," she muttered, turning the wheel as if she was actually crossing it off a list. "Take it you don't like them?"  
  
"You could say that," Sirius said dryly. "They're Death Eaters. Well, Lucius is. Not entirely sure about Narcissa, and Draco's too young."  
  
"Damn," Jenna said feelingly, heading towards the M3 with a pang of regret. Maybe another time? "How'd they piss off their parents that much, getting saddled with those names?"  
  
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Remind me to never tell you my full name."  
  
"Same here," Jenna muttered. "Not the name, really, but the why. And a nickname that usually springs from it."  
  
"Sirius Orion Black," he said, starting to rummage through the box of used library books Jenna had picked up to keep them sane. "Think about the initials. Admittedly, it’s fair warning. My mother is- was, she died a few years ago- stark raving mad.”  
  
"You win, I think," Jenna said, trying not to laugh. "Jenna Judith. Jenna is an old Andrews name with at least one a generation, and Judith was my mother’s choice, after that Bible story. My mother, bless her heart, is what is politely called a roaming soul, and less politely called a wannabe hippie. Dad follows her, and I was mostly raised by both sets of grandparents after mom got arrested for trespassing and… various other activities,” she finished.   
  
Sirius decided that he just wasn't going to ask any more. He had a feeling it was like the Muggle equivalent of the Lovegoods. Brilliant people, fun to talk to, but not quite sane.

He ignored the way that description reminded him of himself.  
  
~~*~~  
  
Sirius looked impatient as they entered Taunton. Jenna had nearly gotten lost once, and it had taken the rest of the twenty-ninth and a good chunk of the thirtieth to get to the town. "You know…" he started. "I can just transfigure myself a bit. I won't even need to do much, given the quality of that damn picture."  
  
Jenna blinked. "That might be a good idea. I still couldn't figure out how to explain the big black dog following me around."  
  
"This is Somerset. Say I'm a Grim who followed you," he answered, dryly, before heading to the bathroom-like room. Jenna had used her own money to buy him clothes and supplies; he'd have to find a way to pay her back.  
  
Huh. What should he do? His eyes, obviously, the Black grey eyes were a bit distinctive. The nose, easiest way to change a profile. Maybe curly hair? Or he could use Jenna's stick straight hair… how annoyed would she be if he used a Switching Spell on their hair? Her hair was only a bit longer than his, as he hadn't felt like a short haircut. James had pulled it on him a few times when his hair gave him grief.  
  
"Jenna?" he said in his most innocent voice. She pulled into a parking lot a few blocks away from the Castle and looked at him suspiciously.  
  
"What do you want?" she asked warily. She had learned to recognize that tone much more quickly than some of his Professors had.  
  
He explained about the Switching Spell.  
  
"You want to swap scalps?" she asked incredulously. Her eyebrows were meeting her hairline.  
  
"It would be harder to catch," Sirius pointed out. "I did it before, it only itches a little."  
  
"And you can undo this?" she asked, looking at him carefully. He nodded. She nodded, and then tugged at his hair.  
  
"What was that about?" he yelped. She gave him an evil grin.  
  
"Just testing. You're sure you don't have fleas?" she asked. "You've been twitching in your sleep."  
  
"Just not used to a bed," he answered lightly. Not like he was going to tell her about the nightmares. Though that sleeping medicine she had might be nice.  
  
She had a disbelieving look on her face, but didn't bug him about it. "Are you going to fix the eyebrows, too?"  
  
"Just a colour changing charm," he figured. "No offence, but I'd look like an idiot with yours."  
  
Jenna let out a snicker. "True." She grinned. “We’re not doing it, though. My ID shows a natural blonde, and I am far too small- the skin would be an issue.”

“Color changing charms,” he mused,

“Change the shape of your nose,” Jenna suggested. “Maybe your jaw a bit.”  
  
~~*~~  
  
And it turned out the castle was actually the Somerset Country Museum. There was the Castle Hotel, which Jenna said was good enough for her purposes. When she finally got back in the room after talking to the owners, she opened the weird … laptop, she called it. She started typing a bit, mostly background history. A mirror started rattling.  
  
"Jenna?"  
  
"Things tend to do that around me," she said airily, not looking up from the computer. “Warn me if it looks like it might start flying."  
  
"I thought you were a Muggle," he said, trying to ignore the fact that he could see some sort of scene in the mirror. And the fact that very few magical things could do this without a certain layout of charms. And it was a lot different than the ghosts he was used to.  
  
"I am," she said, rummaging in her suitcase and pulling out an odd device that looked like some of his post-Hogwarts inventions. "I just have a knack for bringing out supernatural phenomenon. Some people call it being a psychic, but it tends to get a very specific, often worrying reaction. I got the job because I needed employment and this seemed a respectable enough way for me to use it. Could you get the camera? It's in a pocket near the top of the green tote bag."  
  
"Right," he said. "This is normal for you, even if the wizard here wants to run with his tail between his legs." He rummaged around a bit, wondering at some of the stuff in there.  
  
"I freaked out a few times," she said with a grimace. "I first noticed in college, working in a theatre my… well. My unofficial troupe had rented out a theatre to do a staging of a certain play of Shakespeare's. Lights flickered, water ran, doors slammed, and so on and so forth. Finally some long dead actress came on stage as the Scottish Lady, talking in this tinny voice about spots. Entire cast and crew went running, and as far as I know, the Scottish play has not been done in that theatre or by the college since."  
  
"I'm going to pretend I know what play you're talking about," Sirius said. "I take it that's why you work for the Rhyming magazine?"  
  
"The Susanna Riemer," she corrected, "After the oldest colonial ghost story, though it seems closest to some old tales of the fey. And I'll tell you the play at dawn, okay? Tempting fate isn't a good plan." She took the camera, taking a few photos. "Most of these won't come out, but one or two half-there images will be nice." She collapsed on the insanely enormous bed. "I'm good at it. And I get paid. That's what I need right now. Besides booze."  
  
He readjusted the idea of her not being affected by the ghosts. Questions?  
  
"What happened here, anyway?" he asked, pulling out his notebook. Jenna had given it to him after he kept trying to reason out how he was going to get the rat, only to be derailed by something or another.  
  
"The Bloody Assizes," Jenna offered. "Can we talk about something else?"  
  
Sirius vaguely remembered those — he was pretty sure some important witch had been beheaded or something there. And it was freezing. Jenna was typing away, looking at a thermometer. "Like what?"  
  
"I don't know, your childhood?" she offered.  
  
He frowned. "Can we not? I'll tell you about my Sorting, maybe?" It wasn't that much safer a subject, but it would be easier. And focusing on his Hogwarts years would help him remember the details he'd lost in Azkaban. Well, he was pretty sure it would.  
  
"Sorting?" Jenna asked curiously.  
  
"Well, Hogwarts has four houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Slytherin's been filled by the more traditional purebloods for as long as anyone can remember, personality be damned. Ravenclaws were bookish, Hufflepuffs loyal and hardworking, and Gryffindors brave and bold.  
  
"My family had Slytherins making up just about every member, save the odd Ravenclaw, but never the heir, and only about every third generation at the least. Now, my cousins had all been in Slytherin, and of the three of them, Andromeda was the only one I really talked to. Bellatrix was the crazy cousin who once dangled me out a window and fed me Acid Pops and Cockroach Clusters and made up crazy schemes where she was the boss every summer. Narcissa was four years older and more dedicated to family and image than even her sisters could stand, and Andromeda had run off and gotten disowned for marrying a Muggle-born.  
  
"Add that to the fact that most of the kids of the 'right families' I met were dead boring, I rather fancied another house. Never mentioned it to the family, except Regulus, as he was my younger brother and would keep any secret I gave him at that point. Even he thought I just meant Ravenclaw."  
  
By this point Jenna had discreetly opened a document to type refresher notes.  
  
"So I got on the Hogwarts Express — train to Hogwarts — and this kid my age tumbles — really tumbles — into the compartment. Crazy hair, glasses, talking nonstop... Took me an hour to figure out his name, and get him to calm down. After that, we figured out we had a lot in common. Both of us loved pranks, and were a bit isolated from other kids — I was the 'heir to the magnificent Black legacy', yes, those were my mother's exact words. He was an only child to of older couple who were afraid he'd do some stunt that would kill him." Sirius thought about that. "Actually, you know, I'd believe that, considering the fact James loved heights in any form. Nearly gave us a collective stroke the time he dangled his feet outside our dorm window."  
  
Jenna pictured some eleven–year-old looking like he was about to jump out a four-storey window, and shuddered, even if the mental picture was completely wrong.  
  
It was roasting now, so Sirius rummaged through his bag for one of the water bottles Jenna insisted he pack, muttering dire threats about needles. Nothing physical was happening, so he could push it off to wonky wiring. His motorbike had certainly suffered from that while he tried to fix her. Wondering what Hagrid had done with the bike, he continued. "I asked him what House he wanted to be in, and he told me Gryffindor. I decided to follow my new friend there, not imagining…" He grimaced. "My entire family sent me a Howler the next morning. Well, Andromeda didn't, but everyone else. James and who I thought of as this tired, sickly kid who we shared a dorm with helped me out when they exploded all over." He winced. "Helped me to the Hospital Wing to get our collective senses of hearing fixed, actually."  
  
Jenna looked over at him, pausing to right a table lamp that was sliding off the table. "Howler?"  
  
"Shrieking letters that explode at the end," he sighed. "Bellatrix sent me a few after that, but Mother seemed to think it was below her dignity. Anyway, James, Remus, and the other boy in our dorm, Peter, became the best of friends after that. Well," he amended bitterly, "I thought we were. The rat had a different idea, I guess."  
  
"How'd you do the dog thing?" Jenna asked, putting the finishing words on her rough draft.  
  
"Tell you another night?" he offered. She nodded and shut down the laptop, steadfastly staying on one side of the massive bed. He rolled his eyes as the room cooled down again, and fought the itching knowledge that the rat would be heading to Hogwarts tomorrow. King's Cross would be too packed, and he didn't know if he could Apparate just yet.  
  
~~*~~  
  
He was kicking her. Jenna glared across the truly epic bed at her travelling companion, then frowned at the screwed-up look on his face. She was willing to bet that the conditions at that wizarding prison would give Amnesty International a collective conniption fit, and if she released it right, she could make him a cause celebre, but he'd been vague and self-flagellating about it. After he cleared his name, he needed a nice sunny beach, medical care, and a sympathetic ear, preferably one with a degree in psychiatry.  
  
God knows he was still touchy about accepting her help travelling, probably only staying because travelling with a hand/paw that couldn't take much weight and was missing strips of skin was problematic. She'd have to start drugging him by the time they reached Yorkshire if he didn't change that.  
  
Unsure on what she should do, she settled for a quick squeeze of a still-jutting shoulder and a soft "You're going to be okay, Black" before moving out of range and trying to go back to sleep.

She sighed when she felt him rest his head on her shoulder,  
  
~~*~~  
  
Sirius ended up being the first awake. Bored, he went about the task of making sure everything was put away or disguised before the maids came back. He'd tried waking Jenna up before, and had ended up getting a set of scratches down his arm, followed by a pillow to the head, followed by a pair of eyes glaring out at him from under a mushroom of golden hair.  
  
"Mph," the hair-mushroom said blearily. He’d noticed that she had to move in her sleep, even if he didn’t notice it while he was reading. (And that was all he was doing, taking advantage of clever JJ’s tutorials to get him up to speed on what he missed, though she’d had to dig him out of wikipedia a few times.)  
  
"Time to get up," he said. "We're heading north."  
  
Jenna sighed, attempting to pull her head and shoulders up while not actually getting up. The end result made Sirius’ spine ache in sympathy, though the careful stretches that she did in the morning and evening seemed to be useful for her.   
  
"Not that far north. We'll spend today and tomorrow in Glastonbury," she said, looking around the room, taking in the lack of equipment outside of her box. "You're hired. Unless you fried the equipment. In which case, you die. I've only one stop I'm making in Avon, so a day there…"  
  
He perked up. "Really?" That would shave some time off his Halloween estimate. Hopefully.  
  
She nodded, grabbing her brush out of her Mickey Mouse purse.  
  
"It's not Stanton Drew, is it?" he asked. The woman gave him a skeptical look.  
  
"As soon as we are in the van, you are so explaining that, mister," she said, shaking the brush at him. He sighed.  
  
"You realize you spoke to me the same way as you did when you thought I was as dog?" he pointed out. Jenna looked at him quizzically.  
  
"Well, yeah. Dogs tend to be smarter than most people," she explained, as if it was something he should have already realized.  
  
"Really?" he asked, smirking. Jenna simply rolled her eyes and started carrying out bags so they could check out.

“Tend to be, Baskerville. Tend to be,” she laughed.  
  
~~*~~  
  
"Story time?" Jenna asked hopefully. "What's wrong with Stanton Drew?"  
  
Happy not to need a glamour right now, he stretched out on the foldout bed and started explaining. "A distant ancestress supposedly went to marry a Muggle one night, and held the ceremony there. Well, her brother was furious, and went after her, waiting for his chance at avenging the family honour." He made a face at that. "When the fiddler was tired, he got his chance. He snatched up the fiddle, playing an old tune his sister alone would know, according to the story.  
  
"Well, the tune had magic in and of itself, and held the wedding party in its grip. When the tune was done, he turned the entire wedding party to stone, save the fiddler, who could not be enthralled by his own instrument. Supposedly any Black who goes to visit is attacked by their remnants."  
  
"Well, that's not good," she said glumly. He snorted.  
  
"Nowhere else to go?" he asked.  
  
"I could go to Theatre Royal, but haunted theatres…" she shrugged. Sirius took out the guidebook, reading.  
  
"They really don't know why there's a tunnel from the theatre to a hotel?" he looked at the driver's seat. "I thought it would be obvious. Some rich man wanting to shag an actress without his wife finding out and raising holy hell."  
  
"It could be the wife shagging the actress," Jenna called from the driver's seat. "And the guidebook sucks. I'm picking up county ones and going from there from now on."  
  
~~*~~  
  
Glastonbury was uneventful, much to Jenna's disappointment and Sirius' relief. By the time the woman and dog got back to the van, it was almost dark and a summer storm was on the horizon. He hadn’t realized he’d been itching for the little knotwork charms the house elves and Andromeda had made, and he’d caught himself humming a tune that Narcissa had sung when they were little, Star of Lyonesse that Reggie had woven into a crown in her hair.

(He’d made a flower crown for Lily’s wedding, a slightly bitter smile on his face when he’d reminded her that he’d grown up with three older girl cousins.)  
  
"I said I'd tell you about the Animagus thing, didn't I?" he asked, coming down from the 'no ghosts trying to kill us' thing. He tried to weave the story in a way that wouldn't tell anything about Remus' condition. Even if Remus had been willing to give up on him… well, he’d been willing to believe Remus the spy.  
  
"Well, James had heard about Professor McGonagall — the Head of Gryffindor House and Transfiguration professor — being Animagus. How, I don't know. Most students don't tell siblings or younger kids — it ruins the surprise when she does it in class," he started. " And he didn’t have any close relatives- I think… I’d need to check, but it was me or the Prewitt twins, who were speaking to him, who were his closest relatives. He decided it would be a good idea to figure out if we could do it ourselves."  
  
"I'm remembering a disturbing amount of legends which says that's a bad idea," Jenna said, poking the kettle with a fingernail. She kept them painted a flat turquoise she could mend easily enough, judging by the nail polish she kept in her purse.  
  
Sirius nodded. "It was a bit tricky," he admitted. "James and I worked for almost three years before we managed it, and coached Peter through it. You've already met my charming alter-ego…" He waited for Jenna to stop muttering at that. "James was a stag, and Peter was a rat." He frowned. "Thinking back, that should have been a clue."  
  
"A great big flashing neon light," Jenna agreed. "But he was your friend, and people are idiots about friends. What about Remus?"  
  
Damn. "He had a condition that made it too difficult." Well, actually, they hadn't told him, because Remus would try to talk them out of it.  
  
"Oh," she said, yawning a bit. "Any embarrassing mishaps?" He scowled. The time he'd been stuck with the ears was something he'd wanted to forget.  
  
"James ended up with hooves stuck to his feet once," he remembered, the memories coming a bit clearer as he spoke. "Had to charm it so no one noticed. Though the sound charms were a bit patchy. Drove the caretaker batty… Well, battier."  
  
"I think I did an article like that once," she mused. "Only it was a legend about women with them."  
  
They kept talking, and Sirius was now certain that the storytelling thing was helping mend his memory, which was useful, because he was still trying to figure out how to get into Gryffindor Tower.  
  


 


	3. Chapter 3

~~*~~  
  
Two weeks later, they ended up in Aston Hall, Aston, West Midlands. Jenna managed to sweet-talk the curator of the museum by showing her press credentials, which included a copy of various articles, her driver's license, and copies of her degree. Sirius still wasn't entirely sure about it all, and Jenna was still trying to explain the American education system to him, inbetween cursing her boss to hell and back.  
  
The curator was asking her a lot of questions.  
  
Sirius drifted off, dozing a bit in the end-of-summer sunshine, finally stirring when the curator mentioned him.  
  
"And the dog…?" the curator — a nervous looking man in his late forties who smelled of books and greenery — asked, looking curiously at him. He slowly did the 'I'm a sweet and cuddly puppy' routine that had been one of the few good things to come out of sixth year.  
  
"Oh, Bas?" Jenna asked. "Erm, Baskerville, sorry. You know how dogs are good at sensing storms and the like?" He nodded. "Baskerville is good at sensing disturbances as well. Plus, a girl travelling the country by herself…" she did a twisty movement of the lips and shrug that had the man nodding. Twelve years ago, Sirius reflected ruefully, he would have been nodding for a different reason. It wasn't that Jenna wasn't attractive — not gorgeous, but nice to look at, bold, and funny at times — but it was kind of hard to perv on a woman who treated him to sarcasm and bossiness. That had been what he thought James was after, up until Seventh Year when he'd figured out a bit more about Lily.  
  
"It's better than it was when I first started working here, fifteen years ago," the man offered. "Children weren't allowed after dark at all, people disappearing…"  
  
Sirius tried not to tense. Please let this just have been an area where Death Eaters were common. Don't let him be a wizard. Wait… Aston. Not far from Nechells. The Bones family had lived there, once. And… Rookwood had lived in Spark something. That did make sense. Now he had to bite back a growl, because the mole in the Order — or should he say the rat in the Order — let the Death Eaters through the wards at the Bones.  
  
He'd been one of the people investigating for the Order, and had kept his notes as isolated as possible. He didn't want any his work — which featured a good deal of Lily's tweaks to various spells — to get out. Maybe that's why it was easy for everyone who knew him to believe he was guilty. Well, James wouldn't have. He'd have shouted and threatened and Lily would have hexed him to stop and then hexed anyone who got in the way of the truth.  
  
But then he wouldn't have been arrested in the first place. Well, Peter had never been a fellow of endurance, always the first to bring up things no one wanted to admit. He'd have sprung a trap sooner or later, and either he or Remus would have been caught in it.  
  
Jenna, maybe realizing he was working himself into a panic, scratched him behind the ears, making his tail wag embarrassingly. She grinned as she formalised the agreement, signing some sort of contract with the curator.  
  
~~*~~  
  
That night, Sirius realized exactly why Jenna had been a bit skimpy on some of the details of her previous adventures. It started when Jenna started investigating the ghost of the founding lord's daughter, who had been locked away after a failed elopement and went mad after sixteen years of captivity. (Sirius didn't blame her there. Even without Dementors, people who kept prisoners for a long time tended to slide into cruelty. Probably why the Azkaban guard was rotated so often — well, aside from the obvious.)  
  
He'd been distracted by one of the carvings he'd noticed, and had heard a yelp and a wail before Jenna came flying out of the room. She'd made it to the nearest bathroom, if just barely.  
  
She was half-collapsed on the bathroom floor. Hoping no watchman would come by, he transformed to human state to get a better look at her. She was grey, with a deep set of scratches against her collar that should not be there, because fucking ghosts cannot claw people.  
  
At least the madwoman's ghost was gone, shepherded away by a woman in a green dress. "Why did she attack you?" he muttered. He doubted the ghost was violent as a rule, otherwise children would not be allowed. The Muggle world was big on safety procedures. Which possibly had a point, but made things a good deal less interesting, in his opinion.  
  
Jenna winced, pulling the antiseptic from her purse. "Well, some ghosts get annoyed when I come around. Add in the madness…"  
  
Sirius snatched the antiseptic. "This is going to be hard to hide, you know. I know a few healing spells, but I'm still rusty. I can fix the shirt, but I don’t know if you want me near open wounds."  
  
"I have a scarf I can use," Jenna said. "Part of my morning after kit." At his look, she glared weakly. "I suppose it could be a double entendre. Scarf, safety pin, make-up, and aspirin. Pair of gloves when I can get away with it. Hides most of the damage.”  
  
"I didn't say it, did I?" Sirius said. "Do you have a bandage?"  
  
"I'll just use the paper towel to mop it up, then hide it," Jenna said glumly. "Otherwise you'll be blamed."  
  
"I always get blamed," Sirius said pessimistically. "Always have, probably always will. Can't we just run out screaming? I remember some old horror films with that happening."  
  
Jenna shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said. "I still have one more place to go."  
  
Sirius gaped at her. "What?" She acted as if she was in control of everything, as if it didn’t touch her- he probably should have picked up on the wry tone in her explanations. But running into danger…

Well, it did fit with her jokes about being an adrenaline junkie.  
  
"I have a job. It pays the bills, it explains the travelling, and usually allows me to explain away most injuries. I'll avoid that room for now, though," she mused. “So as to not offend your delicate sensibilities.”  
  
"You've done this before," he said accusingly, almost certain. “The... getting roughed up by dead people thing.” She grinned brightly as he flapped his hands at her.  
  
"I was thrown down stairs, had a mirror tossed at me, so on," she said, pocketing the bottle of antiseptic.”Some love the dead. The dead just abuse me.”  
  
"Pots and kettles." He helped her to her feet.  
  
"What?" Jenna asked, half-paying attention.  
  
"Don't know, really, it's just something Moony’s mum said a lot," Sirius answered. "He said it was part of a Muggle expression…"  
  
It took about five seconds before Jenna started laughing, and about three more minutes before she explained the phrase "the pot calling the kettle black" to the wizard's satisfaction, while wondering at his patchy knowledge of muggle culture, which was better than most, if a dozen years out of date.  
  
"Makes sense, Remus always loved puns," Sirius said finally. "Not the tacky ones, but the ones it took you five minutes to realize you were insulted."  
  
"Okay, now we have to go visit Hanging Dick," Jenna said. Sirius just blinked.  
  
"You're joking." He crossed his arms and moved in front of the door.  
  
"No, it's the real name," Jenna said, slipping her hand around him and getting the doorknob, blithely ignoring the fact that she didn't quite come up to his shoulders. He was still skinny enough she could tackle him down. "Now, let me do my job. If I start getting attacked by the man attached to the rope, you can drag me out of here as fast as you can."  
  
"Is that a promise?" he asked. "Your dying would put a crimp in my plans."  
  
"You have plans?" she asked as he transformed into his dog shape. He gave a glare that was supposed to be terrifying, but didn't affect her at all.

He transformed back to a dog in a blink, remembering what she said about possible security cameras.  
  
~~*~~  
  
The next morning, Jenna — having hooked Sirius up in the most annoying bit of being a dog Animagus — was saying her goodbyes to the curator and promising to make sure she let him know when the issue came out. At least she didn't tug on It, like certain people had…  
  
He shook his head. While his memory was becoming clearer and balancing the good and bad better, he was still going to have to finally deal with the last few weeks of the war — especially that last twenty-four hours. He tried to stop the slight shivering at that. He couldn't focus on that, he wouldn't be able to function, and then he couldn't catch the rat and clear his name.  
  
…And wasn't that a change from just wanting to kill Peter? He blamed Jenna. She was far too sensible. It must be catching. Dammit.  
  
"Burslem, here we come," Jenna said softly, It twitching and jumping a bit in her hands. He sighed and tried to figure out a story for this trip, to calm her down so they didn't end up in a crash.  
  
"Hey, I've heard of that place!" he said as Jenna started up the car. "A witch… M-something Leigh, an experimental potion went wonky on her and…"

“Sirius?” Jenna tilted her head a bit, frowning. She had freckles, a faint dusting across her nose, had he noticed that before? “Are you alright? You went a bit wired there, last night, when we were getting set up, and while I am probably the last person to suggest healthy coping mechanisms…”

“I’m fine,” he said, too angry and ragged, pushing himself back into the living area of the van.

It didn’t surprise him when the van pulled over, a little later, and Jenna came back. She had started humming, through, a melancholy little tune he’d heard once or twice before from her, in Glastonbury. She was rummaging through the cupboards, pulling out the mint tea and ignoring his scoffing noise.

“Shut up, I may not be that type of psychic but I like not tempting fate,” she said, mildly. “My Aunt Leah had a miserable experience with an Oujia board, and a librarian I know can use tarot cards to talk you through anything. Tools are tools, no matter what, and if you don’t know what you are doing, you shouldn’t use them.”

Sirius couldn’t actually argue with that, though what that meant for wands he wasn’t sure. He sat crosslegged on the bed, waiting for her to speak. When she focused instead on boiling the water, he chose to ask a question that had been at the back of his mind. “Your aunt Leah? Does she have… powers too?” That was the word she used, Sirius thought, at least for the collective noun.

“Mmm,” Jenna levered herself onto the shelf, some of her bum sliding into the sink. “A bit. Not as noisy as mine, normally- she finds things, works for the FBI handling Missing Persons cold cases. Uncle can smell out a lie. Quiet gifts. Grandmother is closest, I suppose, she can make herself unnoticeable,” Jenna was very quiet at that. “She doesn’t like to talk about it. Dad’s family…” She frowned. “Card tricks, prize winning roses-”

Sirius’ expression must have given his expression away.

“Growing in a month, every year for twenty years?” Jenna laughed. “Like calls to like, Grandad Andrews says, with Grams Pogany repeating it in Yiddish so she thinks he can’t understand. She also mutters dark, cranky things about fooling around with the dead and Dad’s side of the family, but her husband yells at her for it.”

He looked at Jenna, scowling down at the kettle, and wondered if seeing the dead was really all she could do, the evil little Bludger. Because the ghosts at Hogwarts could not touch the living, only Peeves was capable of something like that.

He’d have to add it to the list of things to look into after he caught Peter. Right after explaining everything to Harry.

She looked up when her laptop went beep. “Heh…” She gave him a sheepish look then hopped over the counter. “Must be near a cafe?”

“Not going to ask,” he said, looking over her shoulder. “One of those site things, where you talk to people who think the government is lying about the color of the sky?”

“Mmm,” Jenna said, “Sort of. Some of them are true, Sirius, as you damn well know,” and she flicked him on the shoulder at that, looking over the email. “Hmm, interesting.”

“Why do they call you Ghostlight?” he asked.

“Because I refuse to use my name,” she said, starting a cheerful round of bickering and explanations while Sirius collected himself. "Seriously, I'm semi-well respected, I occasionally go on TV, I can't go on these sorts of sites and shitpost, it would be bad."  
  
~~*~~  
  
Over the next few weeks the pair made up an arrangement that probably looked odd to outside eyes, but worked well enough. Sirius took the form of guard dog at night, or wore a glamour to pass for her assistant, depending on the situation. He told stories after the bad nights. In turn, Jenna woke him up if he started shouting in his sleep and gave him a bit of her sleep medication when needed it — aside from the obvious 'not turning him in' thing.  
  
Jenna had also, almost absently, started marking places that she'd have to get back to, but kept that list locked up alongside the leash, which Sirius shuddered at regardless of what form he was in when he saw it. (It wasn't as bad as the pink studded one she'd threatened to buy, and was made of some type of tough dark blue fabric.)  
  
After reading about UFOs in the guidebook they still hadn't tossed out because it was amusing, if not accurate, Sirius thought it might fun to check them out, prompting Jenna to make a scornful comment about journalistic integrity.  
  
"…Your articles aren't the whole truth," Sirius pointed out. She failed to include a lot, after all, and tended to avoid writing about him, save as a dog. Some of them included video recordings Sirius was very carefully not in, or in as Baskerville the Dog, who apparently was gaining a fan following.   
  
"My articles are — due to our reader desires — half travelogue, half scholarly work," Jenna said slowly. "Oddly enough they don't want to read about the actual haunting without context. And due to… other things, I can't write about my more unique experiences. They'll get disappointed. The videos..." She waved. "New media. It's fun, it's a project Dean was working on with other people, and I kind of like the memes they are making about you."  
  
"Or you're afraid they won't believe you," Sirius pointed out unhelpfully. Jenna glared.  
  
"No, I'm afraid of being poked and prodded and… God knows what!" she threw up her hands. "As long as I pretend to just be an ordinary investigator, I don't deal with the shit that'll come from being asked to talk to ghosts on demand."  
  
Sirius blinked. "Explain? Most ghosts aren't exactly the chatty type. Well, your ghosts. The Hogwarts ghosts are, but that's pretty rare, and tends to happen in old buildings with heavy magic use."  
  
Jenna sighed. "These aren't ghosts as such. Well... Some of them are, like the two in Aston. But most are fragments from some trauma that happened pre-death. True ghosts are more independent, but the fragments are just impressions or part of the spirit getting trapped in a loop."  
  
"That's not really answering the question," he pointed out. From her perch on the fold-out bed, she glared up at him.  
  
"You really suck at leaving things alone, don't you?" she said sulkily. Her hair had somehow gotten over her face. Merlin, she was worse than James ever was.  
  
"Do I even need to answer that?" he asked cheerfully. He liked turning the tables on her. It was fun and distracting.  
  
"I… When people think of psychics, they think of it as chatting with someone who happens to be dead. They don't think of getting tossed about, or seeing deaths on repeat. They don't think that the dead sometimes don't want to talk. And when they do, they don't leave you alone, they make you miserable, because people who die at least content, or of natural causes, they don't leave ghosts!" She was still scowling.  
  
And Sirius was definitely not thinking about James and Lily just repeating their last few minutes over and over and over again.  
  
"Does… does that happen every time someone’s killed?" he asked hoarsely, all traces of his good mood gone. She looked up, then went white as she realized what he must be thinking.  
  
"Oh, God…" she said. "No, no Sirius, I swear. Only when they die angry, or afraid, or want to leave a message, or need something done. And even then, it… it’s not them. It’s an impression left on the local landscape, but it is not them. Kinda like television." She gave him a fierce hug, and he took the freed bed to be an invitation to sit down suddenly, dragging her down on his lap in the process.  
  
Finally, she said, very softly, "I could check for you, if you want me to. I doubt they'll be there, but I'll do it. I can… sometimes I can banish them. Its a bit cobbled together, but I can ask on some of those forums, they include people with actual power, one of them might be able to help..."  
  
"After," he said, figuring that Lily wouldn't have stayed, not bound and unable to watch over her son, not after knowing whatever spell she found made him safe, and James would have followed her. But the nagging doubt would stay until he saw it, however irrational.  
  
Well, no one said he was rational…  
  
"And maybe the street," he offered. It was off of Knockturn Alley, he remembered, not too far from one of the entryways. “I should… Peter wouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t there.”  
  
"It's not," Jenna said, shaking her head. "I walked down it when I was in town, before the whole thing started, not a hint of a ghost. Also? He was chasing you. He was setting you up. He had the knowledge, and he acted with that knowledge."  
  
Sirius thought about this. Probably too quick for any of the unlucky Muggles to know what happened. Or maybe the Ministry's clean-up of the area did it? "So why do you do this again?"  
  
"It's not usually that bad. It's only been a few spots that really got to me," she reflected. "There's an island in Venice I shall refuse to go to, though it's actually fairly hard to get access to. But still, no going there if I can help it." She smirked. "Besides, adrenaline junkie."  
  
"I don't think that's the real meaning of that phrase," Sirius muttered. But he let that go for a more important matter. "You're still on my lap."  
  
"I am," she said solemnly, looking straight ahead at the microwave she'd finally bought second-hand.  
  
"Anyone who saw this would be thinking things," he continued.  
  
"Like, 'oh holy shit it's the sheep-" she said, before collapsing in laughter, falling against the wall the bed was pulled out of now. "Dammit, I was trying to keep a straight face."  
  
"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he asked, now starting to calm down and maybe a little amused.  
  
"No. I'm worse than a ter…." She shut up, but he figured what she meant.  
  
"A terrier? Hmm…" Sirius twirled the wand he pulled from the counter. "I can see it."  
  
She crossed her arms. "You wouldn't."  
  
"Oh, really?" he said lightly. "Dangerous criminal, here." And that was the first time he actually joked about this. Did he smell progress?  
  
"Then you shall never see Lord Byron's house," she said brightly. He gave her a quizzical look. "What do they teach you at wizard school?"  
  
"Wizard stuff," he answered vaguely. "I told you. Now, this Brian bloke…"  
  
"George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron," she said, heading towards the driver's seat. "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."  
  
"Sounds interesting. Does he haunt the place?" Sirius asked.  
  
"Nope," she said. "His dog. Which he wrote a poem for, and built a massive tomb in honor of said lamented hound."  
  
"Now I'm starting to like this place," he said.  
  
"A possible wicked lord is there too," she said brightly. He grumbled, but decided not to argue. Was this how Remus had felt at Hogwarts?  
  
~~*~~  
  
The story Sirius told before they hit the Scottish border was one he'd not wanted to tell. Well, it wasn't one he intended to tell, but Jenna had made some offhand comment and he'd mentioned running away and then she'd raised her eyebrows and he explained the best he could. His stories had gotten a bit less jumpy as he had to explain less and the memories lost the gloom of Azkaban.  
  
"My family and I had never… well, sometimes we got along, but we became estranged as I grew up. My Mother... She had been annoyed and infuriated by my behavior before, but she was doing damn near everything she could to get me to fit the mold of the obedient son, getting more and more persistent as summer wore on. One night, she came in my room, and tried the Imperious Curse.  
  
"I finally snapped and stunned her. That night, I packed everything I thought I'd need, and flew straight to the Potters', not giving a damn about what happened or the Statute of Secrecy or any of that. They took me in for the next month, and treated me like a son. Bit after that, when my Uncle Alphard died, he left me this little house in Sussex. I lived there until that day. No one probably found it, since it has more wards and safety measures than you can charm with a sweep of sparks." He frowned at the train of logic that followed. "Hey, Jenna, we might need to hide you for a bit, after dealing with Pettigrew."  
  
If only she wasn't driving… "Why, Black?"  
  
He looked guiltily at the ground. "Um, Muggles are not supposed to know about our world, and those who aren't immediate family members of a witch or wizard get Obliviated."  
  
"Wait, the memory charm thing you were talking about?" Jenna yelped, swerving a bit.   
  
"Oh, I'll come up with something," Sirius said, trying to think as the van screeched. "Worst case scenario, there's always common-law marriage…" he suggested, joking and waiting for the explosion.  
  
"I do not think that means what you think it means," she said solemnly.  
  
"What?" Sirius said warily. There was still no show of temper, which was odd. She was usually fairly easy to read.  
  
"A quote from The Princess Bride. Well, misquote," she mused. "And only in your dreams, Black." She tilted her head. “Though certain nosy relatives of mine would be surprised, and I wouldn’t mind that.” She gave him a wry look before putting her eyes back on the backroad they were taking. “How nicely do you clean up? I haven’t brought anyone to the holiday party in a couple years.”

Sirius maturely stuck his tongue at her.  
  
~~*~~  
  
It was the next day, October 15, and Sirius was trying to make a bargain with Jenna.  
  
"Please?" he begged. "Just skip a few? We can come back later, and you already have two years worth of articles. It's cruel to keep me away. I'm so close I can smell the rat!"  
  
"Then he must never bathe. I'm getting paid minimum wage with ninety dollars bonus an article," she pointed out. "Four days in Edinburgh means four articles I can send off at different times, buying me two weeks. Give me two more stops and I'm yours for three weeks. I've been hopping around enough as it is."  
  
"…How much is that in galleons, for roughly seven pounds to the galleon?" he asked. "And that was a metaphor."  
  
"I thought you said five to the galleon," Jenna said confusedly. "I'm not sure. Not quite twelve galleons an article, I want to say. And I have twenty-four articles done..." She scrambled for a paper and pencil. "And I knew it was a metaphor, I just felt like saying it."  
  
"I'm not factoring in Gringotts' exchange fees, they're murder unless you have the right connections," he answered.  
  
"And you do?" she said, looking up over the pad.   
  
"One of very few good things I inherited from my family," he said. Now finally getting why he said things like that, she went back to work on the math. She didn't quite understand it, as her parents were so laid back as to be neglectful and her grandparents, while bickering and probably not the sort of people who should be taking up both halves of a duplex, where loving and supportive.

Though extended family was usually another kettle of fish.

"I'd probably end up with about a hundred galleons," she said finally. "If I get Edinburgh."  
  
He frowned. "That's a not a lot of money," he said slowly.  
  
"Not really. While I'm doing this, I haven't been able to reliably do any of the freelance things I normally do to bolster my wages," she said quietly. "I'm letting a co-worker sublet my place for this trip, but that barely covers storage and the loan from my godmother for the van. We need gas, food, laundry…”  
  
He sighed. "So you really need the articles, then?"  
  
"Yeah. A week. Then we'll start scouting up there, okay?" she promised. "Maybe I can pick up a book to review or something, I do some guest reviews on some sites that do actually pay.” She grinned. “Or stream movies? Can we rig up a service dog leash for you, Baskerville, go to the theater?”  
  
"Right," Sirius said glumly. "I didn't realize I was making your life that difficult…"  
  
Jenna gave him a hug. "It's worth it, promise. I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

~~*~~

  
  
He was planning on staying in dog form full-time in Edinburgh, though he managed to sneak a Daily Prophet he found tossed in a wizard-occupied alley in Old Town. Jenna, after smacking him on the nose with it for running off on her, tucked it in her rucksack, which had been purchased after her Mickey Mouse purse had proved too small to hide an EMF reader.  
  
But Jenna, as he was learning would often happen, had different ideas. "Sirius, I need your help."  
  
Turning back, he looked at her suspiciously. "Why?" Being a dog full-time was getting a bit dull.  
  
"Have you heard of Mary King's Close?" she asked hopefully.  
  
"It's not wizarding…" he said slowly, rummaging for a new shirt after an incident with a puddle. "How haunted is it?"  
  
"Supposedly body parts, a little girl, and a dog," she said, packing the rucksack, which showed the results of an argument between Jenna and Padfoot in the form of bright scarlet silk stitching up the brown leather. "The Close was sealed up during the Plague, and supposedly there were still living people inside." Sirius shuddered at the thought. Jenna insisted that he had perfectly understandable issues with enclosure, and he would probably want professional help after all this. He didn't have the heart to tell her a Healer would just give him a Calming Draught or a Cheering Charm. "It's actually not what happened- tourism, that bastion of historical accuracy, strikes again- but something's probably down there."  
  
"What do you need me to do?" Sirius asked, pulling on one of the cheap t-shirts that had been picked up at some chain store.  
  
"I don't think I should go on my lonesome. Could you not sneak off this time?"  
  
"I didn't sneak off while you were on a job," Sirius pointed out bitterly. Was she going to just assume he was hopeless? "You said I wasn't needed."  
  
"I know," Jenna said, a bit sharp. "But I'm a bit worried. We're getting near, and you seem to switch between thinking I'm some helpless thrill seeker — "  
  
"I disagree on the helpless, but you admitted the thrill seeker," Sirius pointed out.  
  
"And, more recently, thinking I'd be better without you," Jenna finished. "And I wouldn't. Because I'd worry, because you're still not a hundred percent, and you leap before the idea of looking even crosses your mind. And you have helped me out, a lot. And I'm really going to need you tonight."  
  
"What's going to try to kill us now?" Sirius asked dryly. He blinked. "Do you know, that's exactly what Moony said the time we followed Peter into the Forbidden Forest after he lost control of his broom. Maybe this is what he meant about all the worries I gave him coming back on me."  
  
"You'll have to tell me that story later. Anyway, according to some urban explorers I found in a coffee shop while you were hunting the newspaper, batteries and electric things tend to fizz out really fast down there. Also," she shrugged. "Me and ghosts and gates? Just imagine."  
  
"You're determined to kill my sense of adventure," Sirius said slowly. "This actually sounds pretty simple. But what's an urban explorer?"  
  
"What happens when you give the middle class tools to self-educate," Jenna, who had gone to university on heavy student loans and jobs she would never tell her family about, said wryly. "They get it into their heads to go visit abandoned places and flout trespassing laws."  
  
"Huh. Sounds interesting," Sirius said. "Be an easy set up to prank someone."  
  
"Which is why paranormal investigators usually follow the trails of urban explorers and find hoaxes. Or paranormal reporters do," Jenna said, trying to reach a banana on a shelf. Sirius levitated it down, which would have been nice, but he set it down halfway in her shirt. After plucking it out and giving him a glare, she went about eating it as slowly as she could, savoring the fact that she finally remembered to pick some up. She had Nutella, she swore she did, banana and nutella sandwiches sounded amazing.  
  
Sirius looked at her, and after raising his eyebrows a little, asked, "What do you mean by supposedly sealed?"  
  
"The closes were sealed off in the eighteenth century to build the Royal Exchange, possibly because the Nor Loch was right there and notoriously noxious,” she said, rolling the words. “They were opened for tour in the nineties, and the public proper in 2003. Only thing is, thanks to my friends in Everyone, I know a woman calling herself Cardea had photos from a few locations, including this one, that she claimed dated before the rediscovery. More to the point, some of the photos are of still sealed closes, or pieces that don’t quite correspond to maps.” There was a flicker of mischief in her eyes. “I might come back to give a proper investigation to it- I do have a name for it back home, and the tour company is looking into it.”  
  
"Cardea's a witch's name," Sirius said, not really nervously. Yet.   
  
"More likely the Greek goddess," Jenna said. "Since that Cardea dealt with doors as well. And maps aren’t always accurate, so that might be part of it. But I want to lay the groundwork for a possible investigation, later. And since tourism season is spiking, just saying, "oh, look, we have a big name American ghost hunter" here will help somehow." She frowned. "Somehow. They seem to think it will."

"True. Plus, a witch from a wizarding family tends not to get into Muggle things," Sirius said.  
  
"So you're strange in every way, then?" she asked merrily. He threw a pillow at her.  
  
"Let me read my paper in peace," he said, unrolling the slightly drool-smeared photo, which was glaring at him balefully. "Apparently they think I fled the country." And the wizard who he’d taken the wand from in Scarborough had been arrested, which was very good.  
  
"Really?" Jenna asked. "We already had this argument. Again."  
  
"And you won it again," Sirius answered, "but apparently they have Dementors at Hogwarts."  
  
"You mean the creepy soul-sucking Ring Wraiths I can't see?" Jenna asked, eyebrows creeping up.  
  
"Yes," Sirius said with a shudder. If it wasn't for the secret passageway via Honeyduke's, he'd be sunk.  
  
"At a school?" Jenna put as much possible incredulity as she could pull off in that question.  
  
"Yes," Sirius said. "Prime example of wizarding logic at its finest."  
  
"Yeah," Jenna said, thinking absently of things like Kent State and hoping the students didn't revolt too bloodily against the Ministry. Getting a good look at her travelling companion's face, she quickly redefined her definition of 'too bloody'. "Is that sort of thinking typical?"  
  
"Considering Crouch's method of dealing with suspected Death Eaters…" he gave her a weary look. "Twelve years I waited for revenge. If that rat gives the slip because the Dementors frighten him away…"  
  
"I smuggle you across the Atlantic and see if we can go for political asylum," Jenna said dryly. "I thought you said your case wasn't typical?"  
  
"If the case got as far as Crouch's desk without being bribed out," he said gloomily, "and given the level of corruption involved and permission to use Unforgivables on both sides, there wasn't that many, the trial consisted of Crouch and two Aurors, usually with a Dementor present, using Veritaserum and Legilimency to get a confession. Just enough for the consequences of a legal conviction."  
  
"Ye gods and little fishes," Jenna muttered. "Kangaroo court much?"  
  
Sirius nodded. "Crouch is a harsh bastard, definitely." He frowned. "International Magical Cooperation's hardly where I'd put him, though. He'd be rubbish at it. Wonder why they'd do that?" He frowned. “Even in Azkaban we knew his son was outed as a Death Eater- given his hardline stance, that would have ruined his chances for running as Minister, but…”

“He didn’t break laws, though,” Jenna pointed out. “So perhaps they didn’t feel they could demote him?” Or, she mused, maybe they thought they did. She’d have to start asking more questions along those lines, though the wizarding papers were few and far between.  
  
"True," Sirius said. "But can I still mock him? It's rather soothing."  
  
"After we clear your name, you can mock him to his face," she said patiently. "I really don't blame you. Had a professor I wanted to do that to, sexist pig." At Sirius' curious look, she explained, "Just imagine English literature as taught by a man who thinks the 'Angel of the Home' philosophy is God and Jane Eyre was a filthy hoyden. His exact words. Honestly, I didn't like the book, but still."  
  
"I'll pretend that makes sense, because otherwise you will explain it to me," Sirius said slowly. Jenna rolled her eyes and started checking her gear. "And mocking Crouch to his face would mean a duel, so I'll give that a year or three, so you don't worry so much." He tossed her a tired grin.  
  
"Are you worried Crouch would leave you broken and bleeding on the ground?" Jenna asked dryly. "'Cause you did pretty good in Dartmouth against that kelpie…"  
  
"Seeing as that kelpie was stalking you, I didn't have to worry so much," Sirius said. "Just had to aim."  
  
"Next time aim for the forelegs, it'll bring it down quicker" Jenna said, counting her rolls of spare film. She held one up, thinking she might have seen a crack in the casing. "Can you hand me about three rolls of film? They're…"  
  
"Above my bunk," Sirius said, standing carefully on the frame. Jenna accepted them just before he got down, and wrapped them in black silk before putting them in. "Where else are we going?"  
  
"I figure the Greyfriars and Holyrood would do," she said brightly. "Two mild scares and two problem sites. Maybe one of those ghost tours? Then we'll head up north. Where's this school of yours?"  
  
"Up along the coast," Sirius said, rummaging for the map of Scotland Jenna had left somewhere. (While he noticed that she kept her kit immaculate, her navigational skills left a lot to be desired. He really wished he didn't have to worry about getting caught.) "It's Unplottable, so I can't do much, but it should be somewhere between here and here," he pointed to the two towns. "If you can get me a map with a better scale, I could probably get us close enough to visit these caves we found outside Hogsmeade. A Muggle van would attract the wrong sort of attention. Best not leave it too far away, though." Jenna nodded.  
  
"I'm setting the alarm clock since we don't have to be there until eight-thirty, alright?" she said, pushing him off the bed. "Shake me up if I have a nightmare. It's been a while, and the thought of those ringwraiths has me jittery."  
  
"When do you have nightmares?" he asked, honestly puzzled. Now that he thought about it, there had been nights when Jenna had been up and sleep rumbled, looking cross and sipping her tea.  
  
"One of our lead actresses in college had a stalker who liked to take photos of her with her own camera, like the urban legend," Jenna said. "Fucker came to rehearsals one night with a knife."  
  
"What happened?" Sirius asked cautiously.  
  
"Her boyfriend was a linebacker," she grinned. "Big, burly guy built like a Mac truck. Snuck up behind him and flattened him. Still creepy as hell, though. Big blue squirrelly eyes."  
  
Sirius imagined one of the larger beaters he'd seen doing this, and laughed. "Must have been a sight."  
  
"Aside from my desire for therapy and immediate enrollment in kickboxing lessons, yeah," Jenna laughed. "Then my friend pointed out kicking the ass of someone who harassed me like that would just let me be the one who got sent to jail. I bought pepper spray."  
  
Sirius reflected on his knowledge of wizarding juries, and had to agree. "Anything else?"  
  
"Moundsville State Penitentiary and Byberry State Asylum. One was getting locked in a cell, surrounded by rioting ghosts, and I had a crazy, crazy night at Byberry. Moundsville is the reason I have those lovely sleeping pills that caught you- I was just starting out, and I scared my roommate at the time so badly she was ready to have me committed if Dean hadn't stepped in. Took two years of therapy and some research before I was comfortable doing overnight solos on that scale again. I was lucky I was photogenic, Richard liked to tease me, because they could take pictures of me or have me give lectures and sound intelligent _and_ look pretty" Sirius twitched a bit at that. Jenna had avoided places with cells, and up until now he thought it had been solely for his piece of mind.  
  
"Right." He grinned. "Jenna, remember what you said about back-up plans?"  
  
~~*~~  
  
They managed, after two wrong-turns and a long stint on a weed-choked dirt road, to get to Hogsmeade early that Halloween afternoon. Well, just outside the town proper, walking up a rocky hill, seeming like a hiker and her dog. Although the hiker had a day old Daily Prophet in her rucksack, to be read later.  
  
"I hear strange music, I'm running for the hills with my cassette player on full blast," Jenna told the dog as they rounded a turn of the mountain. It was a rocky, twisty path, and several times Sirius had to frown and examine an area so he could tell whether or not they had gotten lost.  
  
They finally reached a tiny-looking crack in the mountainside. The woman looked at the dog. "We are not going to be able to fit in that." Sirius snorted and walked in. Jenna, feeling a bit foolish, clambered in.  
  
"It's bigger on the inside?" she said lightly.  
  
"I get that joke!" Sirius said mockingly. "Now, how do you?"  
  
"They restarted it a bit ago, I’ll find you a stream when we’re done," she grinned. "Impatient?"  
  
"I am doing a jig in my head," he said. "Revenge is mine. And then I shall get custody of my godson, and I will ask Moony what the hell he was thinking." He frowned, sitting in front of what looked like a disused fire pit. "Probably exactly what I was thinking. That the other was a spy." He looked blackly at the fire pit, and did not move for several minutes.  
  
Jenna sighed and got the water bottle, kettle, and ramen packet out of her bag. "C'mon, Sirius. Go get firewood, so I can see if I can make ramen in a teakettle."  
  
"I suppose I have to disguise the smoke?" he asked, not moving.  
  
"That would be a good idea," she said cheerily.  
  
He groaned, transformed, and went to get logs. It would be a while before dark.  
  
~~*~~  
  
A few hours later, the scene in the cave was one of bizarre domestic tranquility. Jenna was reading one of the books she had picked up, making notes for a review she could post. If she survived this night with her memory and soul intact, a tiny voice said. College practice was at least letting her pick up talking points, even if she was so nervous she could barely focus.  
  
Sirius was stretched out on a sleeping bag, absently charming pebbles to hop around, looking at the crack in the mountain hopefully. Finally he got up and dusted himself off.  
  
"So I'll go up to the castle, sneak as a dog into Gryffindor tower, and then the plan..." he said slowly. It was finally getting dark, and all the students would be at the Feast, and the Honeyduke's owners would be away at a Halloween party. It might actually work.  
  
Jenna, looking up from the last pages of the book, said, "Okay, just let me grab my bag."  
  
Sirius had turned around when he finished, then came right back around when he processed Jenna's statement. "Wait, what?"  
  
Jenna looked at him coolly. "Honestly, how you managed to stay free I don't know. I said, I'm going with you."  
  
"It's easier to catch two people," he pointed out. She simply continued balancing on the rock. He still didn't get how she did it, all she would say was something about yogurt or something.  
  
"Sirius, your people skills are just a tad bit rusty," she pointed out, dry as the Sahara. "What was your plan, attacking Pettigrew with a knife?" He looked around.  
  
"More… threatening him," he muttered. Jenna covered her face and groaned. It was like working with a badly-trained puppy who did not get that shoes were not treats.  
  
"I am going with you," she said. "You are a wreck held together by revenge and spit. Clearing your name by presenting a living, squealing Pettigrew is a _good_ plan. It means me not getting tossed in a cell with you. You aren't capable of the complex mental gymnastics needed to convince people. I'm… well, I have a better chance." He raised an eyebrow. "You will also scare small children." That startled a bark-like laugh out of him, and Jenna wondered, not for the first time, if the Animagus transformation had after effects.  
  
"All right. But I am not to be held responsible for anything that happens to you," he said finally. She smiled at that.  
  
"Unless you don't listen to me and I die, in which case I haunt the fuck out of you," she said, sounding far too chipper as she scrambled off the rock, which was a bit slippery. He blinked, still not used to the flippancy after Azkaban.  
  
Ah, well, if his plan went to hell, Jenna's ability to pretend to be the God-Empress And Chief Organizer of the Universe could come in handy. Most wizards tended to follow whoever told them things in a sensible and firm tone, probably the results of all studying at one school, reading one newspaper, one wireless network run by the government, and so on. There was some variety, but it was usually in specialty magazine that shared staff anyway.  
  
There might be something deep in that. He'd ponder it later.  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Jenna was rather annoyed by having to follow so close to Sirius, feeling like some useless horror heroine. After the relative freedom of the disillusionment charm, she had to practically cling to him so she could see down the wide stairs, and then down the hill to the tunnel.  
  
When she found herself humming some bit of music from Alien, though, she pinched herself on the wrist. Sirius hadn't said anything, which was good. They finally came out near a weird statue, and Sirius transformed, leaving Jenna to attempt to see by flickering ghost lights from the torches placed at every intersection.  
  
"How are we getting in?" she wondered to herself, hoping Sirius had something resembling a plan. The closest thing they had to a weapon was one wand, one can of pepper spray, and her Swiss Army knife. And Sirius would need to transform to use the wand, though maybe poking someone in the eye would work?  
  
Sirius was focusing on heading to Gryffindor Tower, rather surprised by the ease with which he was doing so. He supposed it made sense, since he had explored every in of the school for seven years.  
  
Some mad god must have been watching out for them, as they ran into no one during their midnight wandering. Sirius reflected amusedly that they all must have eaten themselves into a stupor. And then they arrived at the Fat Lady's Portrait, and Jenna had to enact Phase One of his plan.  
  
"Hello," Jenna said to the portrait chirpily.  
  
"Hello," the Fat Lady, looking more than a little tipsy, said. Sirius smiled a friendly doggie smile, as he had been right about the painting and Violet getting drunk.  
  
"Um, I know this sounds stupid, but I got sent to check that Sirius Black didn't manage to get in the Tower. I'm actually a member of the Violent Magical Crimes Unit in the States, it's some transfer program engineered by Mr. Crouch. He's determined to catch him, you see. It's fairly low-key, as apparently Fudge dislikes it, possibly some internal politics, I'm not sure, no one likes to talk to the dumb Yank, you see?" This was said in a rambling, nervous voice, with a hint of a Southern drawl. It seemed to encourage people to let their guards down. (Sirius had also discovered that Jenna could not do any regional British accent to save her life. A roommate from Charleston throughout two years of college meant she could manage that alright, and she spoke flawless curses he couldn't follow when Sirius laughed off the mattress when she tried to mimic him.) "And then the Dementors — those things are awful, aren't they? I never dealt with one before I came to England."  
  
"Oh, your poor dear," the Fat Lady said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "I know Professor Dumbledore's making some headway in getting those awful things out — I found out from one of the other portraits, you see? And you need to make rounds?"  
  
Jenna nodded miserably. "And I feel awful, because I wasn't told the password. The person who sent me here must be laughing at me." She scuffed the floor with her sneaker, looking at the flagstones.  
  
The portrait swung open, "You can at least look in real quickly." Taking his chance, Sirius dashed in, sending it flying out of Jenna's hand as she gave a cry.  
  
"Baskerville!" she yelped. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'll be back in half a tick," she said, ducking in to the hole to the portrait's chuckle.  
  
As soon as it swung closed, Sirius transformed back with a chuckle. "That was brilliant!"  
  
"Not out of the woods yet," Jenna said quietly. "You ready?" Butterflies were fluttering in her stomach. This was all or nothing.  
  
"I've been ready for twelve years," Sirius hissed. "Now let's go!" He went carefully up the steps, advising Jenna on how to avoid the squeaky ones. They got by without mishap to the 3rd year boys' dormitory.  
  
Jenna went to the first desk and pulled away two wands. Sirius nodded sharply and flicked his wand, Summoning the other three. He checked and delicately pulled open one curtain, feeling a curious mixture of nervousness and nausea. Finally… but what if Pettigrew escaped again? Jenna waited by the door.  
  
The rat was sleeping. Muttering a prayer, he Stunned the little bastard and put him in his pocket.  
  
Jenna gasped, and Sirius turned around, to a pale white face with blazing green eyes.  
  
"Harry?" he asked, feeling like he really wanted to sit down.  
  
"You're Sirius Black," the boy said slowly, edging towards a textbook near his foot. Sirius gave him a skeptical look.  
  
"That's my name, yes. But I can explain everything," he said hurriedly, hoping none of the other boys would wake up.  
  
"Like the not trying to kill you part," Jenna said helpfully. He shot her a quick glare, which she ignored with the ease of practice. "He's actually after a rat Animagus who's the real traitor. Can we go to someone who we can explain this to?"  
  
"You have my wand," Harry pointed out. "Why should I trust you?"  
  
"I'm a nice girl? Well, except for the incident after the Fleetwood Mac concert, but I was stupid and drunk then, and I like tattoos," Jenna mused.  
  
"Why have I never seen this tattoo?" Sirius asked, holding up the rat to show Harry. "I saw Pettigrew's Animagus form in the Daily Prophet article, broke out, tried to see you, went to London, met up with this lovely lady…"  
  
"Don't call me a lady, I work for a living," Jenna muttered. "And it's a chaos star on my shoulder, pervert. I swear you must have seen it. Also, I'm a Muggle, I can't use a wand."  
  
Harry blinked. "This is really weird. And he can use a wand," he said, pointing at Sirius.  
  
"I already have one. And Jenna took your dormmates' wands as well," Sirius pointed out. "Look, if I can't kill the damn traitor, can we get the Dementors as far away from me as possible?"  
  
"I already brought up the idea of political asylum, but the stubborn… man thought he had to do this himself," Jenna told Harry, whispering. "Now let's go… Sirius, you forgot to tell me where we're going."  
  
"Dumbledore's office?" Harry offered. "One of the portraits there can get him." He seemed more amused and sleepy than anything, which probably meant that no one had told him why Sirius supposedly wanted to kill him. That was a good plan, there…  
  
"You might want to transform, Sirius," Jenna pointed out. "You can't get caught yet."  
  
Harry nodded. "Snape would probably feed you to the Dementors himself. Can you explain why you want to kill me?"  
  
Sirius tossed a pleading look at Jenna, who shook her head. "When we get to Dumbledore's office, while we wait, all right?" Sirius pleaded as he handed the Stunned rat to Jenna, who put him in a Tupperware bowl with four corkscrew holes in it. Then he did a double take and scowled. "Severus Snape? Greasy git who looks like a bat, couldn't be pleasant if you paid him? What's he doing here?"  
  
Harry nodded sharply, obviously fighting a grin. "He teaches Potions?"  
  
Sirius transformed, but not before saying "Snape? Teaching my godson? Teaching James’ son?"  
  
Harry gave the dog a wide eyed stare.  
  
"Why do you think they thought it was him?" Jenna questioned the boy softly, seeing a curious expression take over his face and wondering what, precisely, he had been told about this whole mess. "Can you to lead the way?" They snuck down the stairs and carefully ducked their way through the castle, taking a rather looping route so they wouldn't get caught.  
  
When they finally got to a stone gargoyle, Harry admitted he didn't know the password. "It's usually some sort of candy, though." He offered.

"Some things never change," Sirius shook his head wryly, "Remus once stood out and guessed for an hour when he needed to, saw Dumbledore right behind him smiling and apparently jumped to the ceiling."

"I'll try the candies I know, you try the wizarding ones?" Jenna offered. It took ten minutes and Jenna's sarcastic 'everlasting gobstoppers' before the gargoyle turned aside.  
  
~~*~~  
  
Jenna merely looked at the paintings with amusement. "You are all about to witness the unraveling of one of the biggest scandals I've ever covered… except I'm not actually writing it. _Dammit!_  Baskerville, you are lucky you are a pitiable son of a bitch. All right, biggest scandal I've ever witnessed happening in real time," she amended. "No screaming. Would one of you fetch Professor Dumbledore, please?" She then sat on a chair. "Tell me if I'm needed."  
  
Sirius transformed and sighed, eliciting gasps and curses from the portraits. 

"Well, I suppose it starts when I was eleven," he started, explaining that he made friends with James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.  
  
"Remus Lupin?" Harry interrupted, "He's our Defence professor. Why didn't he tell me?"  
  
"Remus…" Sirius frowned. "Well, he lost almost everything that night. I doubt the Ministry would let him see you, or write you. He probably wouldn't want to get your hopes up… he was always rather depressing that way." Sirius' expression made it clear his friend better have a decent explanation. Sirius shook his head, continuing the story with becoming Animagi, not explaining why Remus hadn't, making Harry give him a thoughtful look. Sirius determined Snape had probably been dropping nasty, vicious hints about Remus to the students. It was exactly the sort of thing he would have done Before.  
  
Then he explained something even more shocking to Harry. "Dumbledore told your parents and the Longbottom family to go into hiding. He was very closed about it, saying that Voldemort was specifically targeting you and the other boy-"  
  
"Neville," Harry said quietly. Sirius nodded.  
  
"Sorry- Azkaban’s played hell on some of the finer details of my memory. So both families went under the Fidelius Charm, with Dumbledore as the Longbottom's Secret Keeper, and Peter Pettigrew as your mum and dad's," he continued.  
  
"But wasn't Pettigrew one of the people you killed?" Harry asked. Jenna shook her head from her spot, pinching her nose and muttering a curse.  
  
"I didn't — I wish I had killed him," Sirius admitted. "I still want to, but Blondie won't let me." Harry gave Jenna a skeptical look. Jenna gave the serene smile of one who knew she could break everyone in the room and said nothing. "He's the one who sold your parents to Voldemort to save his own cowardly hide. When I tracked him down, he shouted for everyone to hear that I betrayed Lily and James- my family in all but blood- and blew up the street, disguised as a rat. He left a finger behind as evidence," Sirius finished. "Or he was really that poor a wizard."  
  
"So you'll show Dumbledore that Pettigrew is still alive, and your name will be cleared?" Harry asked hopefully.  
  
"It'll be a bit harder," Sirius admitted. "Questioning and all, but since I was never convicted…"  
  
Harry blinked. "And Hermione goes absolutely _mad_ ," he muttered. "Wait, if you didn't get convicted…"  
  
"Never had a trial," Sirius said, turning to Jenna with his head cocked like a hunting hound hearing prey. "I need the rat now." Jenna pulled Pettigrew out of the container, handing him the wand Sirius must have been using, Harry realized. He hadn't seen it switch hands earlier.  
  
Sirius started the spell to forcibly transform Peter. Jenna held the pepper spray can out. As Peter finished, the door opened, and three people came in. The first was Professor Dumbledore, followed by a hook-nosed, sallow man Sirius recognized as Snape, and bringing up the rear was a careworn man who took one look at the scene and gaped.  
  
"Hullo, Professor, Remus," Sirius said gleefully. "I brought a present." The three gaped at tableaux: the sprawled figure of a dead man,  Sirius Black, notorious mass murderer, dressed as a Muggle and doing a victory dance, and Harry watching this all with the tolerant air of one who's ability to recognize absurdity was completely gone. The random woman probably just made it all the more confusing. Jenna seemed to realize this before waving and standing up.  
  
Then Sirius looked at Snape, a narrowed glare that made Jenna reflexively grab his elbow.  
  
And then Snape opened his mouth. And Sirius decided to let the fluffy-looking blonde rip into the slimy git. It would be more entertaining. "I see someone's managed to tame you, Black."  
  
"I'd say 'bite me'," Jenna said, keeping no visible trace of venom in her voice, "but you'd probably take it seriously, and then God knows what I'd catch."  
  
Remus looked at Sirius curiously, prompting him to give a quick shake of the head. He'd never told Jenna about Remus' lycanthropy, which made the dull, angry red Snape was turning even more amusing.  
  
"I trust this can be explained, Mr. Potter?" Professor Dumbledore said finally. Harry pointed at Sirius and Jenna.  
  
"They grabbed our wands, but I was the only one to wake up. Apparently Scabbers was an Animagus called Peter Pettigrew and you've been keeping something important from me," Harry said mildly, as if this was an everyday occurrence. "And it turns out this is my first year that someone's not trying to kill me." Harry thought about this. "Well, apart from Sn—Professor Snape, that is. But that's more wishing me a horrible death or hoping I'll die from humiliation."  
  
Sirius had enough. "Jenna, can I borrow your pepper spray?" he stage-whispered. Snape aimed his wand at Sirius, who coolly looked back. Jenna rolled her eyes and sat down.  
  
"If you kill him I shall do something evil, like setting fires," Jenna said mildly. "I have hairspray, paper, and a lighter. Do not meddle in the affairs of blondes, as you are creepy and will catch fire easily."  
  
"Did you just threaten him with a mangled Lord of the Rings quote?" Remus asked, smirking a bit. Jenna nodded. "Thank you for that. He's been insufferable. If it had been too much longer, I might have gone 'round the twist and started apologizing for his behavior."  
  
Professor Dumbledore watched this with amused tolerance, and then said mildly, "If we could get back to the task at hand?" Jenna and Harry watched with amusement as three grown men looked ashamed. (Well, two did. Snape just lowered his wand, which they assumed meant the same thing.)  
  
After doing a few spells to assure everyone present that the man before them was Peter Pettigrew, the Headmaster managed to rig something so Peter wouldn't get away. "Severus, would you fetch some Veritaserum?" he asked. The Potions professor went off in a swirl of robes.  
  
"Remus, if you could escort Harry back to his dorms?" Professor Dumbledore said slowly. "And escort Mister Black and Miss…"  
  
"Andrews, Jenna Andrews," she offered.  
  
"Miss Andrews while you do? I need to call in a few people, and Cornelius' reaction to Sirius' presence will prove… unpleasant," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling. Jenna wondered if he used some type of spell to do that.  
  
Remus waited a moment before leading them down, probably to put more distance between them and Snape. Which was probably a good thing, given Sirius' dark mutterings.  
  
"How long has he been teaching here, anyway?" Sirius asked Remus.  
  
"Fourteen years," Remus said slowly. "Just before Harry was born. Slughorn finally went into… oh," Remus shook his head. "James and Lily had that massive campaign to keep any news of that from reaching you. I'm surprised it worked."  
  
"I was a bit busy," Sirius said wryly. "I was trying to be the Order's investigator. And I might have known and forgotten, what with..." He shrugged.  
  
"And I was too busy trying to get a million things done myself to notice," Remus admitted. "When Peter started asking if I thought you were the spy, after Marlene's death…"  
  
"He did the same for you," Sirius admitted. "I think he was planning on ending his spy career soon, anyway."  
  
"That makes sense. Peter never had the stomach for some of our more high-risk adventures," Remus said slowly. "Actually, several things make sense. I think I had to do several bits of rather convoluted logic to reconcile you as a traitor. Mostly the Secret Keeper bit…"  
  
"Part of Peter's conditions for doing it was not telling you," Sirius admitted. "I assumed he knew something about you that he thought suspicious." Jenna tilted her head at this.  
  
"Jesus, did he know how to play you," she mused. "Even I know you get annoyed at hints."  
  
"And the fact that your hints usually end up with one of us bleeding has nothing to do with that?" Sirius asked. Jenna shrugged.  
  
"One would assume you'd figure out that my job is dangerous right after the third or fifth assignment," Jenna pointed out.  
  
"Padfoot tends to need to be slapped over the head with a fact a few dozen times before it can get to his brain," Remus said lightly. Sirius blinked.  
  
"Remus, I break out of Azkaban after twelve years of false imprisonment, deal with a madwoman, having to avoid the Aurors, and dogcatchers, and you treat me to sarcasm? I'm wounded, I truly am." Sirius held his hands to his heart theatrically. Harry gave Jenna a 'is he always like this' look, and Jenna sighed. Harry correctly took this as a yes.  
  
"Where are we going to go?" she asked.  
  
"There are some abandoned classrooms not too far away, we'll stash you in there. Then I'll escort Harry to the Tower," Remus looked at the boy quizzically. "Now, Harry, why did you follow a suspected mass murder everyone thought was trying to kill you?"  
  
"Because they weren't acting like the other people who'd like me dead?" Harry offered, sound a bit weary. "Mostly they just try to talk about how brilliant they are. Sirius and Jenna were just joking with each other and agreeing to explain things and apologizing for everything."  
  
"Ah," Remus said slowly. "I really think a nice long chat with Dumbledore is needed after this. How many people told you they wanted you dead?"  
  
Harry frowned, "Who could actually do it?" Harry started counting in his head, occasionally muttering about Snape and an Uncle Vernon. "Does two separate ghosts of one person count once or twice?"  
  
Sirius frowned. "Different times?" Harry nodded. "Twice, then."  
  
"At least six, then," Harry answered finally. "Or do you want separate threats? Because that's closer to twenty…"  
  
"A very long chat with Dumbledore, then," Remus muttered, before turning to Jenna. "You might want earplugs for it. Sirius can get loud when excited."  
  
Sirius sighed. "I am a much vilified man. Harry, you should go to bed, Fudge is going to want to throw his weight around, and I don't want you getting caught in the crossfire."  
  
~~*~~  
  
Two hours later, Jenna thought that sending Harry away was the best idea of the night. Professor Dumbledore, Snape, Remus, and the travelling band were facing the Mister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and three witches. The first had tagged along after Fudge, a short, toad-like woman named Umbridge who made Remus scowl and the stern expression of the Head of what was some form of law enforcement agency, Amelia Bones. Sirius had sat up straight on seeing her, as well as the pink-haired witch who followed, who took one look at Jenna and burst into a laughing fit. It took Jenna a moment to place her as the young woman who had fallen down the library steps when this all began.  
  
"If she hasn't changed, she's as honest as they come," Sirius said with something like hope. "Less chance of any political manipulations of the truth."  
  
"You mean lie? They will anyway, I think it's taught as part of the Poli-Sci major's requirements," Jenna said dryly. "Same with Law. Actually, considering Dean's ex-wife's divorce lawyer, I know it is." Sirius snickered. Jenna had mentioned her co-worker's slightly unstable ex-wife, and the three-ring circus the divorce had become. (Nearly literally.)  
  
Fudge looked at Sirius triumphantly. "I told the Muggle minister that he needed to keep pressing on about you! But he said something about free press and other news items. Some of Muggle journalism makes no sense to me."  
  
Jenna sighed and tried to resist the urge to defend the honor of her occupation. It was an often tarnished and torn reputation, to be sure, but Daily Prophet articles made a lot seem like the Encyclopedia Britannica as run by Nobel Peace prize winners. From what she could see, libel laws didn't exist in the wizarding world.  
  
"But then you would have been pressing him to purport a lie," she said finally. "You see the not-so-nice, not dead Pettigrew? Missing a finger? Breathing? And caught?"  
  
"It could be a trick," Fudge said carefully. "The savagery of the attack…"  
  
Jenna sighed, and pulled out an argument she had gotten from one of her pet researchers through the conspiracy boards, one who she knew to have powers and keep his mouth shut unless she needed him to. A second copy of his neatly, remarkably scientific data was there. They hadn't been able to vanish the street, and it turns out the explosion had been a lowkey conspiracy theory on its lonesome. The reports were all there, and _none_ of them supported Fudge. "You could talk to any Muggle bomb expert, they'd laugh you out of the building after looking at the evidence. It was very well detailed, and I can read you some of the details..."  
  
"I remember!" he said sharply. "I was the first on the scene!" Jenna looked at Sirius, waiting to see if he had anything to say.  
  
"And you followed proper procedure, I trust?" Sirius asked politely. Remus winced. Sirius was not a polite, polished person. For him to fall back on childhood training meant he was holding on to his restraint by his fingernails, as Lily had deduced when apprised of the Whomping Willow Stunt. "Ensured that you properly interviewed everyone before Obliviation, made checkpoints, got Pensieve records for a reconstruction? Let your investigators do their jobs?"  
  
"Are you insinuating that the Minister wouldn't follow proper procedure on an important case?" Umbridge asked, her Alice band slightly askew in excitement.  
  
"I'm stating that a green junior minister bungled something the Aurors should have properly handled, and then let himself be bulldozed into being forced into a miscarriage of justice!" Sirius shouted. "I'm not attacking a person, I'm attacking the whole damn system that was so unprepared, not forty years after Grindelwald, for a dark wizard, or to actually have any bloody idea of how to tell if someone had a fucking tattoo on their arm branding them like cattle! Hell, ten minutes of your precious time would have cleared my name!" He stood up during this, Jenna mentally cheering from her seat next to him. "Jenna, you did send that letter, right?"  
  
"Letter?" Amelia Bones said, curiously.  
  
"To a Muggleborn schoolmate who went to America," Sirius said slowly. "Remus, remember Rebecca Jones? Hufflepuff beater, rather terrifying woman, voice like it was on a permanent sonorous charm?"  
  
Remus nodded. "She does something for the American's magical government, doesn't she? Something about profiles?"  
  
Sirius nodded madly. "Yup. I sent her everything I could get my hands on, along with a pensieve recollection or three. So even if I don't make it out which, going by Madam Umbridge's expression, is entirely possible, the truth will reveal itself. Lockland Montglane hates the Ministry after the disaster in June 1981-“

“Surely any ruffled feathers from that far back have been soothed by now,” Umbrige pointed out.

Sirius’s expression made it clear that he thought she’d fallen off a broom a few too many times. “He lost three men and his niece ended up with a cane when the Ministry- inadvertently, of course- sponsored a highly illegal transaction to benefit the Death Eaters. And seeing as Montglane damn near runs the show there… His MCA is a bit scary.” That was putting it mildly. Most countries’ law enforcement had specialties. France and disguise spells, Britain and dueling,  The American Magical Crimes Agency was known for “fortress storming” and curse-breaking. It was rumored that they had ties to some of the Muggle agencies, as well.

Dumbledore gave an approving nod. “Not to mention the general attitude of the wizards there towards us hasn’t improved since 1812, I believe. If I recall correctly, there was a matter of an unsigned treaty…”  
  
"I trust that won't be necessary," Fudge said.    
  
"I made copies!" Sirius said cheerily. "One on me, three across the pond, a few with contacts across Europe. And I know Sni—Snape has Veritaserum," he stuttered as Snape absently held the clear glass vial over the fire. Admittedly, they had been contacts Jenna had gotten from her co-workers and friends of friends, as well as some guesswork. And, snickering and writing an additional letter, to the godmother she refused to explain a lot about. He handed a shoebox to Madam Bones. "Shall we?"  
  
By the time everything died down, Sirius was undeniably innocent. But Umbridge, still smouldering over Sirius' callous disregard of the sanctity of the Ministry and Minister, was going over Sirius' written statement in hopes of nailing him and sending him back to Azkaban.  
  
"An Animagus?" Umbridge said evilly.  
  
"Provided Mister Black registers after we finish, I have no problem with saying that I can put that down to time served," Bones said, making notes. "And this does prove what Dumbledore has been saying since the Lestranges’ arrest, on the unreliability of the Dementors. Blind guards are a weakness."  
  
"The dangers to those nearby cannot be denied," Dumbledore said mildly.  
  
"They nearly caused a panic among the students during the train ride here," Remus pointed out. "They looked prepared to administer the Kiss on Harry Potter as well, until I drove them off."  
  
Fudge went pale, and Sirius looked murderous. Snape looked a bit disappointed.  
  
"And I really, really start to believe the idea of bureaucratic lobotomies," Jenna said under her breath. Tonks, who was sitting next to her, grinned. “Your boss seems to be the exception proving the rule.” Tonks’ grin grew wider.  
  
Umbridge unconcernedly kept reading the paper. Everyone else simply waited for her next outburst — including Fudge, who looked a bit embarrassed.  
  
"Bell, book, and candle; candle, book and bell, forward and backward, to send Umbridge to hell," Remus muttered darkly, quoting Marlowe.  
  
The toad-like woman looked at him in triumph. "You stole a wand?" Sirius looked down on her. (Quite a bit down, really. Jenna was probably a good inch taller.)  
  
"I was a qualified wizard at the time of my false imprisonment," he said, making sure to be quite clear and steady. Bones was looking at him with amusement, possibly seeing where he was going with this. "As I was not formally convicted of any crime, as no trial was ever held, not even the kangaroo courts Crouch ordered," so he had picked up some phrases from the Muggle woman, "and I was never told of the retraction of the Confiscation Laws for 1980, under the laws passed in the result of the Nottinghamshire Revolt of 1195, as made binding by the Witch Queen Alienor in the Lion-Heart's stead, I was within my rights twice over to confiscate the wand while on the hunt for a dangerous fugitive and noticing he had been using it to commit deeds that would have offended any right thinking soul." His mouth twitched a bit at the last quote.  
  
Jenna blinked, clearly working the historical bit, before her eyes crossed and she looked for a seat. Lupin gave her an equally surprised stare, though probably for reasons that didn't include finding out something rather important about a favorite historical figure.  
  
"What laws did he break?" Umbridge asked, clearly disbelieving.  
  
"Several Memory Charms," Sirius said smoothly. Umbridge snorted.  
  
"Hardly a sign of evil," Fudge pointed out, still giving twitchy little looks at the collapsed Pettigrew ever so often.  
  
"On a succession of young, pretty Muggle girls?" Sirius said carefully. “Ones that were already a bit… dazed?”  
  
Bones nodded at that. "We caught a young man in the area who'd been using magic to seduce young women and Obliviate them so he wouldn't get caught. A few of the attempts, from what we could tell, featured a mild attraction draught, which is, of course, illegal to use on Muggles as well." Tonks looked proud, and Jenna had a feeling she had been the one to catch him.  
  
"I take it you confiscated that as well," Umbridge said nastily, giving Jenna a dark look. Sirius gave her a look. Jenna sighed and mentally made a running total of the nasty names she could call the woman.  
  
"No, I didn't. Besides, she'd probably kill me in my sleep if I tried it," Sirius said lightly.  
  
"A Muggle?" Umbridge said sweetly. "Killing a wizard…"  
  
"Suffering from malnutrition, banged up, and recovering from the Dementors?" Sirius said dryly. Fudge winced. Maybe Dumbledore had a point on prison conditions. "Hell, Jenna's probably the only reason this plan worked half as well as it did."  
  
"Be that as it may," the Undersecretary said, poisoned honey dripping from every word, "she is a Muggle, and the law does state…"  
  
Sirius scrambled. "I have to discuss that later, alright? But it's complicated." Jenna raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. She was all out of ideas at the moment, she hoped he had something planned. From what Sirius had said, it would be a two-fold disaster. One in that she would lose her memories of the past two and a bit months, and then she might get brain damage if the notoriously tricky spell wasn't performed just right.  
  
She ran through their options, come up with while at Holyrood.  
  
One option was revealing the psychic thing and praying to God Above it counted as non Muggle enough. The problem was that it might not, or she would be sent away and studied for the rest of her life. As that had caused her a good few panic attacks in the past ten years _without_ the magical conspiracy thing getting involved, she understandably disliked this option.  
  
The second was going into hiding. This seemed idiotic, so they scrapped it immediately. They'd just worked their asses off so Sirius didn't have to keep hiding, why do it again? Besides, Sirius, Jenna realized, truly wanted a chance to have a life and raise his godson.  
  
The third was the one that Sirius was supposed to go with, asking for Jenna to have a license to remember the magical world in view of her aid in catching the man who truly committed one of the most horrific crimes the British wizarding world had seen in living memory. Umbridge would make that more difficult. Actually, seeing as Fudge seemed to require Umbridge to answer the floo, impossible. Possibly.  
  
Sirius had also joked about common-law marriage until Jenna smacked him. But they had looked up the law in a book, finding the emergency plan of irregular marriage by declaration de presenti. They wouldn't have to actually have to do marital… things, and it could be dissolved in a year and a day, but it would make Obliviating her without Sirius' written permission a major offence. Which had prompted a cynical questioning on wizarding marriage laws that made Jenna despair for the future of the 'crazy, common-sense-lacking, wand waving misogynists'. Then Sirius had pointed out that a Muggle man marrying a witch had the same laws applied, and gotten a shoe thrown at him for his pains in making sure she understood what she was talking about.  
  
"I hope you aren't hoping that her assisting you means she'll get special treatment, Black," Snape said silkily. "I'd say that shows her lack of judgement, and goes as proof that she should be Obliviated at the soonest opportunity."  
  
Sirius sent him a glare. Greasy little bat always had to go and be a killjoy, didn't he? Probably stole the 'Least Favourite Teacher, Ever' award from Binns the Bore. Jenna gave a slow, shaky nod. She was the one who needed to send the messages to let people know that everything went okay, and all that Avengers-like stuff. (He blamed Mrs. Lupin for that addiction. And whatever anyone said, he did not drool over Emma Peel.)  
  
"Well, as Snape has forced our hands, Jenna and I have an announcement to make," Sirius said slowly. Remus' eyes went wide and he bit his lip to prevent laughter. Tonks' eyes went as wide as saucers, and Snape turned green. Yeah, life was good.  
  
~~*~~  
  
"I can live with you?" Harry said two days later, simultaneously savouring the moment and looking as if he expected it all to be a trick. They were sitting on a log near the lake, as Sirius set about to getting to talk to Harry finally, having been delayed by classes and legal messes. It was chilly, but it was worth it for the privacy. "I don't have to go back to the Dursley's house, ever?"  
  
"No," Sirius said, grinning broadly. "Just say the word and I'll file the paperwork today. It'll be done before Christmas."  
  
Harry nodded slowly. "Then... yes. Yes! Of course! Why wouldn't I? Where would we live? Could I still see Ron and Hermione over the summer?" Then he paused. "Professor Lupin told me about you and Jenna…"  
  
Sirius laughed so hard that a nearby flock of birds — that really should have migrated already — took flight. "Jenna would be the first to disabuse you of the idea that she should act as a reason to keep away, or keep your friends away. She can cook, too, which is probably a good thing what with..." he waved a hand. "I could get used to keeping Miss Terrier nearby."  
  
At the joyous expression on his godson's face, he knew he was doing the right thing. He hadn't been able to invite friends for the summer while at Hogwarts, first for fear that his mother or Bellatrix would kill them and transfigure the bodies, and then because that was what James did, and Sirius had always felt awkward doing it, no matter how much the Potters had treated him as a second son.  
  
Harry nodded at this. "All right. Do you want…" he broke off, red staining his cheeks. Sirius wasn't sure whether it was just from the wind or embarrassment. He hazarded a guess.  
  
"Would you mind writing me every once in a while?" he asked. "I missed the past twelve years, and I want to make sure I actually get to know you. Otherwise I'll just have to go with what your dad liked for decorating, and your mother always wondered if he was color-blind…"  
  
Harry let out a startled laugh, and they kept conversing until dinner. Sirius was beginning to think that this might actually work out.   
  
And he could figure out ways to make Snape's life a living hell, because he was allowed a bit of petty-bastardy, and he had been an investigator for the Order. Even rusty, he was capable of putting together _why_ Snape had turned spy just then. Maybe he'd try to replace Snape after the inevitable snapping. He'd gotten an O in his Potion NEWT, and God knows being good at teaching wasn't an apparent requirement at Hogwarts.  
  
Besides, Jenna had found some books on necromancy as she involuntarily practiced it, including a banishing mixture he would keep on him. She seemed to have the fourth worst luck of anyone living he knew. And she was going on about a colleague coming to visit, Isabel something, and trying to figure out how to keep her from noticing what was going on. She was muttering something about starlets, little girls, and someone who actually wasn't Sirius for once being mad as a hatter.  
  
Yes, life was good for Sirius Black right now. And he was going to keep it that way, hopefully for a good long while.

 

 


End file.
